Part I: The Magic of Madness

I.

The world was spinning all around him. It was laughing at him. He could hear the laughter even though everything was quiet. Everything was laughing at him – high, cold, cruel laughter.

He walked with a weird gait. His leg was broken, but the laughter was so loud he couldn't hear his screaming. He walked through the sidewalks and the streets and the alleys, into benches and lampposts and bins, feeling the pain from his broken leg and broken leg and broken ribs.

He wished they would stop laughing. If they stopped laughing, he could get some peace . . .

There were voices, sometimes, when the laughter was quietest. They wouldn't ever be quiet now that they were awake. They were angry, angry at being away for so long. People were laughing. Things were whirling, spinning, dropping and raising and twisting. He wanted peace again . . .

A woman screamed and he fell – finger bones snapped – the sky danced a Viennese waltz – her screaming was merging with their laughing and his crying.

"Blood! Blood!"

"Drink it," whispered a calm man. A girl shook and took the cup.

He wanted quiet. He clutched his eyes but his arm and fingers were broken and they couldn't grab.

"Ambulance!"

"Stand back!"

"Don't you touch me!" roared the singer and she put the gun in her mouth and pulled –

He saw white and light and purity, but not peace. People grabbed him and he screamed "My arm, my arm!" because by now bone poked through skin. The laughter rose and turned malicious, thrown at him because he was in pain and couldn't help himself. They were scared.

He didn't know – he didn't know – he didn't know – he didn't –

They stabbed him. Lights spun. High whining and car tires sung out like an aria in A Major. He cried out for his mother and for a girl whose name he didn't know.

"It'll be alright, son, we got you."

"We have you now," the man barked, his breath smelling like beer and cigarettes.

He screamed again. He felt tears on his face and blood on his chest and broken bone on his arm. Leather strapped around his body, binding him, capturing him. He screamed some more, for his mother and father, for girls and boys he didn't know or maybe knew.

"Mum! Mum! Mum, Liffey, Ginny! Please, Clyde, Sirius – Dad, please, help me, please . . ."

"Settle down, son, settle down."

"Rhine!" he screamed. He clutched at air, twisting broken fingers, flexing broken hands. "Rhine! Where's Rhine? Rhine Berlin – where's Rhine Berlin!"

"It's alright son, it's alright – you're safe . . ."

He laughed. He joined in the laughter. It tore his throat and made it fill up with blood and made tears fall more.

The ambulance was spinning all around him. It was laughing at him.

II.

Alison Monroe had worked for forty years in Saint Sarah Hospital's casualty ward. She was sixty-two, and would retire in three years. She worked on patients who had been pulled out of twisted, shattered cars – women beaten black by husbands, raped by strangers – gunshot wounds and stabbings. She had seen everything, and now tonight, Alison could say she had seen it all.

The ambulance brought in the boy after midnight and he was still screaming even though his throat had been cut. Poor lamb, how he had survived so long medicine would never know. He was starved and beaten. His leg had been twisted, his fingers smashed, and his arm – well, Alison didn't know how an arm could get like that in the first place.

The screaming was the worst. He sounded like a child, screaming and crying for his parents and friends. His eyes twisted and swiveled as if trying to run, streaming with tears, a wild, feline green. It rebounded through the ward, through the hospital, as five nurses and two doctors took him to surgery. It stopped when they put him under anesthesia.

He was in for ten hours to repair the broken bones, to stop the bleeding in his belly. They stitched up the cuts and pulled the glass from his arm. They pumped so much blood into him that they ran out of O-. They put pins in his arm and leg and covered them in plaster. A photograph was taken and given to the police so they could search for family.

They kept him sedated so he would sleep, and not scream. Alison and Nurse Hathaway were assigned to his post-operative care. Rebecca Hathaway fluffed his pillows and combed his hair back from his face, flattening it with some cool water. It looked windblown, the same color as raven-feathers.

He was such a delicate-looking boy. Maybe fifteen, maybe younger – Alison had a grandson his age. They'd covered so much of his face in bandages and gauze little was seen. His skin was the same color as plaster. A single scar was seen on his forehead, in the shape of a lightning bolt. It was years old, so they didn't cover it.

"Poor lamb," Rebecca said, stroking his fringe from his face, and leaning over to check his vitals, "I don't even want to know what happened to him."

"We'll know soon enough," Alison assured her, "Once he wakes up."

"Been two days," Rebecca said, worried, brow crinkling in thought, "What if –"

"Don't second guess – you'll never survive here if you start to second guess. You make the notes in his chart?" Rebecca nodded. "Let's go."

Alison turned around, sparing one more look at John Doe's sleeping, scratched-up features. She begged to God his family hadn't caused him – there were too many terrible things in the world, and he shouldn't have to deal with them. She touched her forehead, heart, and shoulders for a cross and walked out with Rebecca for the room next door.

"'Scuse me, 'scuse me!"

"Miss, you can't come down here without a pass –"

"Another homeless person," Rebecca said with a sad sigh. Alison crossed herself again and looked around, plagued already by an unfortunate day.

A girl was walking passed the nurse's station, though they were calling after her. She was filthy, wearing a bomber jacket and a wrap skirt, her long fingers holding a curled up newspaper. The girl was shaking and her other hand clutched her stomach protectively. Alison sighed in despair.

"'Scuse me, 'scuse me," she repeated, tears in her large eyes, hurrying towards Alison, holding out her newspaper, "I – I looking for boy." She had a heavy German accent to her voice and she shoved the paper into Alison's face. "Vith, vith big green eyes!"

A security guard stumbled forward and took her by the shoulder. "Terribly sorry, Nurse Monroe," he said, tipping his head forward, "I don't know how she got passed security."

Alison didn't answer. She was looking at the newspaper, at the photograph circled with black crayon over and over again. It was the still, shut-eyed, scarred-up face of John Doe, the screaming boy with the lightning scar.

"Hold on a moment Ted," Alison said, frowning, and leaning towards the homeless girl. She looked up at her with a shaking, quivering, exhausted face, streaked with tears and chimney ash. "Do you know this boy?"

"Thames," she stuttered, "He Thames." She rubbed her eyes viciously and sniffed. "He vell? He alife?"

"Yes he is, Miss," Alison said comfortingly, and turned towards Rebecca, "Go get her a glass of water, dear, that's a good girl. C'mon, young lady, why don't you tell us your name?"

"Rhine Berlin," she said automatically, puffing out her chest and lifting her chin, "Like un nixie. Mädchen." She rubbed her eyes again and followed Alison into John Doe's room, shuffling in an old pair of canvas sneakers. Alison didn't think that Rhine Berlin was really the girl's name, but she remembered that John Doe had been screaming for a Rhine Berlin when he had come into Saint Sarah's.

The girl didn't move when she went into the room. She stood in the doorway and shook, her whole body trembling, both her hands clutching her stomach. She moaned and sobbed gutturally. "Thames, Thames, Thames," she cried, "Thames . . ."

"Here, dear, here's a chair," Alison offered, pulling one up by the boy's bedside, but the girl didn't move. Her hands moved up and clutched her filthy hair, knotting her fingers in the blackened waves. "Miss. Berlin, can you tell me his name?"

"Thames," she said, still not moving, "Thames London."

"Is that his name, Miss?" She didn't respond. She moaned, clutching her head, tears falling down her face. Alison licked her lips. "Miss, is Thames the father of your baby?"

"Gott ist mein Vater," she said, softly, like a man's last cry. She shuffled in her filthy sneakers towards the bed, surrounded by equipment, making gentle beeping and humming and noise, "Mein Vater ist Gott." She reached a dirty hand to stroke John Doe's hair, tracing his lightning-bolt scar with one finger. Traces of dust and grime were left, dirtying the bandages.

Rebecca came in with the little paper cup of water, which the girl – Rhine Berlin – did not drink at all. Alison pulled her aside and whispered in the hallway, "Ask Doctor Carter down here and have him examine the girl. Ask for a translator, too."

"Doctor Carter – from psychiatry?"

Alison nodded slowly and sadly. She crossed herself, again, and waited in the room until Dr. Carter came down. All Rhine did was stroke John Doe's hair and scar, and whisper things in German.

III.

Every day for three days, Rhine Berlin came at the beginning of visitor's hours and left at the end. Nobody asked where she came from and left her alone with John Doe – Thames London – to pet his hair and moan and hold her belly.

"Tesla," she would say a lot, with a smile, a twinkle in her grey-green eyes, "Edison." She clutched her stomach hardest when she said those names.

He would wake up sometimes, but the sedatives kept him from staying awake too long. Whenever they lowered the dosages, he would start screaming again, and Rhine would start crying, and so the doctors thought it better to let him sleep.

On the third day, when Rhine was in the room, holding Thames's unbroken hand, he had more visitors come in. Three men came in, with passes and visitor tags and odd clothing – two were in their thirties, and one was at the end of his life. One was dark-haired and sallow skin, one had graying brown hair, and the old man had long white hair and a beard.

The old man smiled, blue eyes twinkling, and walked up to the nurse's station at the ICU. Nurse Callahan almost giggled – he was dressed like a Victorian dandy. The sallow-skinned man sneered at her and looked, disgusted, around the hospital.

"Pardon me, young lady, but I've recently found out that my grandson is here," the old man began, still smiling, and pulled a folded photograph and newspaper article from his pocket. He showed both to her – one was the same bad photograph that Rhine Berlin had used to find John Doe, and the other was of a healthy young man with black hair and bright green eyes. "Is Harry here?"

"Oh, Harry's his name?" Leslie Callahan asked, her shoulders sinking in relief, "I thought he might be John Doe forever."

"You mean he hasn't told you his name?" the brown-haired man asked. His face looked haggard and there were bags under his eyes – he hadn't slept or eaten well for months. Leslie looked at him pityingly.

"Well no – he's been sedated and on morphine since he got here. Why don't you wait here while I –"

"We need to see Potter now," the third man demanded sharply, narrowing his black eyes. The nurse shivered in her scrubs. She couldn't disobey a man like that.

"R-right – right this way. I'll have Doctor Gilliam meet you." She shivered again and walked down the corridor, towards Room 15 and John Doe. "I must warn you – he has sustained extensive injuries. It isn't a pretty sight."

The brown-haired man was shaking, visibly, his shoulders hunched and hands quaking. He swallowed twice and tried to speak. The old man frowned. "How did this happen?"

"We think," Leslie began, uneasily, "He fell from a building." Pushed or jumped, they didn't know, and Leslie had no desire for either to be true.

"Typical Potter," the third man snapped and the brown-haired one glared so hard flames might have erupted from his gaze.

"He has another guest with him now, so –"

"Another guest? Who?" All three were suddenly very interested, none more so than the old man, whose eyes had stopped twinkling.

"A homeless girl. She's come in every day to visit him – just sits there and strokes his hair." She didn't think it appropriate to mention Rhine's pregnancy, or her insanity, or her mumbling. She brought them to the room and said, "He's sleeping now, so please don't disturb him."

"Yes, we wouldn't want that, now, would we?" the oily-haired man barked.

"Severus, please," the old man said, and Leslie was glad to watch them leave.

Remus Lupin still felt his whole body shaking, frozen like Azkaban water, his throat dry and head aching. He hadn't slept in months – not since the day they'd found out Harry was missing. Remus remembered that day so easily; he didn't need to shut his eyes to picture it. He had been at Grimmauld Place – it had been July. Nymphadora Tonks had raced into the kitchen and screamed that he was gone.

The first words out of his mouth had been, "Don't tell Sirius!" It had been two months ago. Today was September 1st. Sirius had found out, and he hadn't spoken to Remus since Tonks had told the convict.

He raked his fingers through his hair. It needed to be washed. He walked into the hospital room, behind Dumbledore, and looked at the girl in the chair by the bed. He couldn't help but look at her first because she was directly in his line of vision, and he couldn't do anything else but look. She was a teenager, young, with long dirty brown hair and a bomber jacket on her shriveled shoulders. Grey-green eyes looked up, and her hands were holding Harry's.

"Willkommen," she whispered, and reached a hand to stroke his hair and scar, "Sleeping. Shush." She put a finger to her dry, caked lips.

"Hello there young lady," Dumbledore said, smiling, while Remus stared down at Harry. He thought that, maybe, James's son was somewhere lost under the plaster and bandages and strange Muggle metal things. It was a disgusting, disgusting sight, and if Remus had just cared a little bit more, spent a little more time with the Order, it wouldn't have happened.

"Who are you?" snapped Snape without preamble.

"Wife and mama," the girl whispered and brought Harry's limp hand up to her own cheek, making him stroke her face, "Thames is sleeping. Don't vake."

"Can you tell us your name?"

"I don't see why it matters, Headmaster – we found Potter, we can get him to Pomfrey now –"

"Don't you want to know how this happened, Snape?" Remus snarled without trying to keep his voice low. It was shaking, too, just like his clenched hands and jaw. "He looks like – like someone beat him with –"

"Don't be hysterical, Lupin. Potter's sustained worse playing Quidditch. Muggle medicine makes everything look worse."

"Severus," Dumbledore warned and looked at the homeless girl again. Snape locked his jaw and glared ferociously at her, eyes narrowed to black slivers lost in a parchment face. She was staring beyond him with a large, vacant pair of eyes that had nothing to them. Just . . . lost, empty, gone.

"You taking Thames?" she whispered and clutched Harry's hand, wrapping both of hers around the pale, ruined thing that was his. "No . . . no, not, no . . ."

"Thames? The river?"

"Gafe up for me," she said in an even quieter voice, and began to moan. Snape was opening his mouth again, his eyes narrowing even further, lips stretching. One of the Muggle doctors walked into the room, holding charts in his arms, his smile pained and strained and artificial.

"So, you folks are John's relatives, are you?"

"Harry," Remus immediately corrected, since calling him anything else was blasphemous, "His name's Harry Potter."

The doctor nodded. "Right. Now, you're his grandfather, right?" Dumbledore gave a slow nod. He was standing beside Harry's head, and his face looked – well, it was hard to pick an emotion to put on it. His lips and cheeks sagged, his twinkle was gone, and the blue had turned frigid but not hard.

"Your grandson's sustained massive internal injuries. We've repaired his arm and leg, but he'll have a limp, for certain. He's had a nasty crack in his skull, too." The doctor walked forward and turned Harry's head, slightly, and Remus's breath hitched and soured. There were several inches of thick, black stitches coursing from his left ear towards the back of his skull. Some of his hair had been shaved off around it. "He's very lucky to be alive."

Harry was always lucky to be alive. His whole existence was the result of luck. Remus didn't want to hear that. "How did this happen?" Remus asked before he could stop the words from coming out. Of course he knew how. Death Eaters.

"You'll have to talk to the investigating officers. Here," he pulled an index card from his pocket and scribbled a telephone number on it. He handed it to Remus, who didn't even look at it. "Ask for Inspector Collins. Now," and he looked back to Dumbledore. His voice softened and dropped some volumes, "Does your grandson have a history of psychiatric problems?"

"What!"

"No, he doesn't. Why did you ask?"

The doctor licked his lips and shifted his gaze. "It's just, whenever he's awake, he's screaming. He calls for his parents, mostly, but just screams."

"His parents are dead," Snape said, unmoved, voice the same as ever. He was ignoring the homeless girl even though her dead stare was still fixed on him.

"People do that, sometimes, when they're injured like this – more often in children."

"When can we take him home?"

"Oh, that won't be for quite some time – we have to –"

"I'd like him home, with friends and family, if that's alright with you, doctor," Dumbledore said slowly, calmly, explaining something simple to a simple man. Light was back in his eyes, for Legilimency, but it was not his twinkle. Remus was still starring at Harry's face, pale and still and covered in bandages. He hated Muggle medicine, he decided, because it looked unnatural.

The doctor sputtered for a moment and blinked thickly. "R-right, of course, of course – I-I'll get the release forms right away." He stumbled over his own feet and walked out of the room, looking confused and lost, blinking, and muttering, "Release forms. Got it."

"Miss," Dumbledore said, gravely, looking at the filthy girl in the bomber jacket, "I'm going to have to ask you to give us some privacy with Harry."

"Thames," she corrected automatically.

"Harry," corrected Remus.

"Will you do that for us?"

She stuck out her chin and puffed out her chest. "I has rights. I am mama – Tesla or Edison." The hand that didn't hold Harry's fell down to her stomach. "Thames vill pick vhen ve knof."

"What?" Remus's hands had started to shake again, badly and nastily, and he swallowed, "What do you mean?"

"Potter knocked a girl up. It's exactly what it sounds like. Idiot."

"You shut up!"

"Enough!" Dumbledore walked over towards the girl, whose lip quibbled and knees shook. Much, much gently, he leaned down to her. "Young lady, can you please tell us your name?"

"Rhein Mädchen von Berlin," she hissed between her teeth, standing up, hands clenched at her sides. She looked like she was going to hit him, standing straight backed, unafraid. "I is Rhine Berlin of Planck, and, and, I VILL NOT LEAFE HIM!"

Her words echoed loudly in the hospital room and left a quaking, poignant silence in her wake. She breathed heavily. The machines hummed. Remus's heart pounded in his ears.

"She's a Muggle, Headmaster, surely –"

"Not Muggle," she said.

"You're not?" She shook her head.

"Yes, yes, here are release forms for you to sign," the doctor's voice rang out and he shuffled back in, holding some forms, his face still confused and befuddled by a little bit of convincing.

IV.

He slept. There wasn't any laughter or voices or light or pain. He liked sleeping. He didn't dream.

When he woke up, there was white light everywhere, just like where, where –

No, not there, anywhere but there, anyplace but that, not there, not where they'd died, where he'd been killed, where, where, where . . .

They pulled needles from his arm. They took tubes from his throat. His veins were full of poison. He felt no pain, no sensation. There were dull thuds in his chest. His lungs touched broken ribs but didn't hurt.

The laughter started again. It rose up. It pushed in. It grabbed and clawed and snatched him. He screamed and struggled. He tried to run but couldn't. His leg was pinned. His arm was thick.

"My leg! My leg!" he screamed and flailed his arm. He struck something and heard it snarl like a wildcat. The laughter dimmed and he swung his arm again.

"Damnit Potter!"

"Mum, mum!"

He was crying again. He felt the tears, like ice, like diamonds, on his cheeks. Something was strangling him. Tentacles of cloth – he grabbed at them to claw them off. "Rhine!" he screamed, "Where's Rhine, Rhine Berlin?"

"Ich bin hier," she whispered. She held his hand tighter and stroked his hair. He smelled her stink, "I am here."

"How do I know? You – liar – please –"

"Failure, failure," mumbled the chemist, and took a hold of the tube in the rack to swallow.

"String theory," she whispered, "We're always connected. Together."

He fell limp. He looked up, into the sky, the white, the empty, and saw her eyes. The grey-green eyes, like sea-foam, soft like sea-foam, river-foam. He smiled and clutched her hand. "Rhine," he whispered. He spoke her language, like they'd taught him. "Und unserer anstecken?"

"German? He can't speak German . . ."

"Hier," Rhine promised and he relaxed.

"Portus," a man whispered. He recognized it.

"Greis die Hummel," he told Rhine, "Old man, the bumblebee. Please don't go . . ."

"String theory," she assured, holding him tighter, cradling over his body, "String theory, Thames, string theory."

"We're bringing you to somewhere safe, Harry," whispered the bumblebee, "To the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place."

"Twelve apostles," he muttered, "Twelve months." The numbers chased away the laughter and he repeated some more, until all he could hear was his breathing and Rhine's heart and three people from a past life. "Twelve times twelve – one-four-four – twenty-four is twelve times two – twenty-four hours to a day."

"What're you babbling about, Potter?"

His hand was pulled away from Rhine. Something was put into it and his fingers were closed around it. A piece of paper. He felt a tug on his stomach. He began to scream as the world began to spin and whorl and twirl and the laughter was reaching pitches even though the numbers had chased them away and all he was to sleep except he couldn't and . . . and . . .

"One times one is one! One times two is two!" he screamed and flailed his arms, "Rhine! Rhine! Mum, dad, Sirius – where are you – where're you –"

"Ich bin hier. I am here."

"I'm here," wheezed the woman in the white coat, "Look at me, boy, look at me and say it."

A thud. He fell. He collapsed and then rose again.

"Mobilicorpus."

"Into here – it's a spare room, there's a bed."

"Rem –?"

"Leave, Tonks!"

"LEAVE!" he was bellowing towards the small child in the corner who was bleeding and shaking his head, "NO! DON'T!"

He was put on a bed. It was soft, much softer than in the white place but he still couldn't move because of everything that was broken. Rhine wasn't there. The bumblebee was.

"Harry, do you know who I am?"

"I can't feel my leg," he said, moaning. His stomach was empty and his head was full of thoughts that weren't working.

"Harry," the man said and reached out to touch him on the arm.

The laughter turned into screaming. A thousand men were screaming. A thousand women were screaming. He heard all of it – it all was echoing, echoing, circling, pushing, grabbing – it scratched at his face and neck and tried to dig out the veins in his neck. Pictures flooded his brain. Faces. Smirking, sneering, twisting faces.

A Potions Professor. A Chemist. An Arsonist. A Death Eater. An Uncle, an Aunt. The men in white. The Man in Blue grabbed him.

"I've always wanted this," he breathed. He smelled like beer and cigarettes. "Get rid of your youthful defiance, I will." He laughed.

He screamed. "DON'T TOUCH ME! DON'T TOUCH ME – GET AWAY FROM ME!" He tried to pull away, to get into a corner, but the metal, the plaster, the pins on his legs kept him still. "MUM – SIRIUS! SIRIUS!"

A sob. "Oh Harry, what happened to you?"

V.

Sirius Black was not a patient man. He was not a forgiving, understanding man. Once, he had been a man who had taken pride in his appearance, but not anymore. He hadn't cared about it for months. He hadn't cared about anything for months. Nothing had mattered since July 1st, when Nymphadora Tonks had rushed in, and said that Harry Potter had disappeared from his relatives' house.

He sat in the kitchen of his mother's house, with rye whiskey in a bottle in his hands. His face was sour and unshaven and he smelled like beer, sweat, and piss, not just whiskey. He couldn't shut his eyes without seeing Harry's face. His godson – well, it had been three months. Death Eaters didn't keep prisoners alive for three months. Voldemort wouldn't keep Harry Potter alive for three months.

Sirius drank more whiskey. It tasted like shit – he needed to stop asking Dung for booze.

"'m sorry James," he sobbed, and collapsed into his folded arms. His body was racked with trembling. Tears didn't fall because he had run out. "'m sorry James, Lily, 'm sorry 'arry, so sorry . . ."

Footsteps said that someone entered into the kitchen. It was Remus, who was pale and shaking and looked about to vomit. Sirius didn't care – he didn't speak to Remus anymore. Remus had hid, for a month, the knowledge Harry was gone. He had let Sirius live in denial for months. He wasn't a forgiving, understanding person.

"Sirius," Remus began, his voice hollow, like he'd been crying, "Sirius, please talk to me."

"'m sorry . . ."

"Sirius, we . . ." He swallowed. "We found Harry."

Sirius's head jerked up and the sobbing died in his throat a slow, agonizing death. He knocked the whiskey bottle over when he stood up, and thought of smashing if over Remus's head. He'd feel better, a little, maybe.

"You found his body?" he asked, hoarsely, a croak of a voice.

"No, Sirius – Padfoot, he's alive," Remus said, walking forward, wringing his hands, "We found him in a Muggle hospital in London. He's alive."

"Alive?" No, that was impossible. Death Eaters didn't leave survivors. "He's not alive. You're wrong."

"Padfoot, he's here – down the hall."

"Here?" He felt hazy. "Harry's here?" He repeated it twice more, aloud, and a dozen times more within his own mind. Harry – here – alive. The alcohol stemmed back the words for a moment, but they came out with force and a stumble of feet. "I need to see him! Where is he!"

"Down the hall," Remus repeated and, though his mouth was still open and words were still leaving it, Sirius had bolted and left the room. He stumbled down the hallway, the change in light making sparkles twinkle, and used the wall for a guide.

"Harry!" he shouted, tears of happiness, ecstasy, and raw emotion coursing down an unwashed face, "Harry, where're you!" A door was open down the hall and he flew towards it, the doorknob smashing into his gut and the door hitting his bare heels as he stumbled in.

The room was small and bare. It had been used as the room for the single human servant Walburga Black employed – the governess for her sons. It smelled of mildew and rats – the bed was about to snap under the weight of its occupant. The chair had already fallen apart because someone had tried to sit on wood rotten since the seventies.

A girl in a dirty bomber's jacket was beside the boy in the bed, cooing nonsense, smoothing his hair. Sirius had no eyes for her – only for the boy, his godson, an invalid, dressed in white cotton and plaster and bandages. He was sitting up, holding a broken arm to his chest, a broken leg stretched out. His face was covered in little scars and Muggle stitches. He looked lost, big green eyes blinking, child-like, infantile.

"HARRY!" Sirius shouted and collapsed at his side, "You – you – you're alive . . ."

Harry was staring ahead. A smile had tucked in one corner of his mouth and listed up another. His lips were slightly open. "Hello," he said, softly, slowly, the pitch shaking. Sirius looked at him, but alcohol and tears made the world blur.

"What happened, Harry – was it Death Eaters? Was it Malfoy, Wormtail?"

"Hello."

Sirius's eyes wanted to widen, but he didn't have the focus to make them do so. They shook in their sockets and stared at Harry's calm, languid eyes. "Harry?" he whispered.

"Thames," said the girl. He didn't hear her.

"Harry?"

"You smell like he did," Harry said, still in that same slow, soft voice, like there wasn't enough of him there to talk normally, "Like beer and cigarettes."

"Like blue," said the girl. She began to quake and shake and she clutched her stomach.

"You can't do anything to us," Harry whispered, leaning forward, keeping his body stiff like his pelvis was bolted to the bed. He didn't blink and pushed his face into Sirius's, so that Sirius could see his own dirty face in Harry's untainted eyes. "We're witnesses. You do anything to us, and we'll tell what you did to Mediterranean." Tears fell down the girl's cheeks. Harry's smile twisted and curled and made his eyes grow even larger. "I'll bet Canon will take away the beer, won't it?"

"What're you –"

"The Muggle doctor said that he needed a psychiatrist," Remus said from the doorway. His brown eyes were staring at Harry in pity and sympathy and grief. "That's, that's a Muggle version of a mentalist. Dumbledore's trying to see if one from St. Mungo's can, can come down, maybe – join the Order and –"

"He's insane? Is that what you're trying to tell me Lupin – that my godson's insane!"

Sirius looked dangerous when he stood up. His teeth were bared and snarling and he rounded on Remus. Harry didn't blink or flinch when the yelling started. The girl was crying quietly, rubbing her eyes with a dirty sleeve.

"We don't know that, Sirius!"

"We wouldn't have to wonder why if you were watching him, like you were supposed to!"

"Don't you think I don't know that?"

"'Scuse me, 'scuse me." There was a tug on the sleeve of Sirius's robe. He spun around and his fist missed the top of the girl's head. She looked up at him with watery, dead eyes, and slipped him a bit of folded paper. "Ve need books, and paper, and lots of paper."

"Who the hell are you, anyway?"

"She said her name was Rhine."

"Why's she here?"

"She was in the hospital when we got there. She, she says that . . ." Remus shut his mouth. There wasn't any reason to tell Sirius that. It was just pointless and painful, and he didn't need to know that the girl was pregnant with what she said was Harry's child. It would destroy him. But he had thought Harry's disappearance was pointless and painful information that would destroy him, and Sirius needed to know that. He inhaled. "She's pregnant. She said Harry's the father."

"Can you get us these books?"

Sirius howled in misery, and collapsed. Harry blinked and smiled.

"Hello."

Disclaimer:

I do not own Harry Potter. He and his universe are property of JK Rowling and Warner Brothers. I own this plotline and all original characters contained within it.

Author's Note:

Harry/OC? BLASPHEMY!

For those waiting to wring my neck, this is far from romance. I don't plan on having Harry gush after a Mary Sue. I somehow doubt he's going to be able to do any gushing in this story, at all, unfortunately.

This story is brought to you by a renewed interest in science and math that the American public school system has systematically destroyed over the last eleven years. Blame PBS and Carl Sagan.

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First Posted 8.1.08

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