A/N: Contains elements from Sucker Punch and American McGee's Alice. It was originally going to be a longer piece taking place during all 7 years, but this seemed simpler and better for telling the story I wanted to tell. Sorry for not updating Connections, but this just wanted to come out. I'm hoping that it isn't too confusing, but...oh well. Even if it is confusing, I'll just call it "intentional ambiguity" instead of "bad writing."
He had the nightmare every night since the house burned down. And every morning, he woke up, drenched in sweat and mouth open in a silent scream.
Living with the Dursleys had taught him to keep his screams quiet.
Every morning, he would take a few deep breaths before he felt the calming sensation of fingers running through his hair.
This time it had been worse. Much worse. The dream hadn't ended when it usually did.
He was in his cupboard, listening to the screams. Every night, he would be sent to bed. The screams would start, and last for around fifteen minutes. Then, they would stop.
He heard the sounds of pure terror through the house. Why didn't anyone else hear? Why wouldn't anybody listen?
There was a thud against the door.
"No, please!" the screams started again. "Please, not Harry!"
There was another dull thud.
"Please!"
He curled up on his bed, trying to cover his ears.
The door opened a hair's breadth before slamming shut again. There was a fleshy smack, and the door started to open again. He saw a single emerald iris through the gap before everything exploded around him. Flames licked at the walls, and he could hear screaming again – not just the single scream he'd heard every night, but three more screams he could recognize as belonging to his relatives.
He ran out the cupboard door and to the entryway. He could hear Uncle Vernon bumbling behind him in pain, letting out grunts and yells of rage and pain, but he ignored the man and continued, barreling out the front door.
He turned, then, once he was safely outside the house. His clothes were singed and his feet gave the familiar tingle of burns, but he turned and stared behind him.
A young girl was trying to follow him outside the house. Her dress was torn and coming off her slender frame, and it was on fire, a roiling torrent of flame. She was crawling on the ground, hand over hand, her face turned towards him in supplication. Black hair framed her face, and her eyes were a bright green.
Then the burning wall above the front door fell and blocked her from view.
Usually he woke up when the flames started licking at the walls.
"Harry," said Rose.
She had been there with him, too, along with the nightmares. The voice of a young girl, that only he could hear. He'd read up on trauma after the fire, and knew the terminology: dissociative identity disorder. Knowing the term for Rose didn't help any, as there was very little that he could do about it other than recognize that he was mentally unstable. A little over three months after the fire, Rose had first appeared to him: the girl crawling from the house. She wore the same clothes, although they were not on fire: a torn black dress hanging from her frame, not doing much to cover her body.
"Harry, it's okay," said Rose. "You're here. It was a dream."
He leaned back and put his head on Rose's lap. The apparition continued stroking Harry's hair. "That one sounded worse," she commented.
"It was," he said. "Normally I wake up when the flames start. This time I saw you trying to leave the house."
He relaxed against her. It was a familiar ritual: he'd wake up, and she'd comfort him until he was relaxed enough to function in public.
"It's your eleventh birthday," Rose said suddenly.
"Yes," Harry agreed.
"That means that the letter from Hogwarts will be coming."
"So you say."
Rose told him strange things. Harry, knowing that Rose was actually a mental projection, always took these statements with a grain of salt. His grip on reality was tenuous enough without believing everything his hallucinations told him.
The door opened, and Mr. Smith entered.
Mr. Smith ran the Institution Harry resided in. Harry had not been the only survivor of the fire; his Uncle Vernon had also survived, and had Harry admitted to the Institution. Mr. Smith was perfectly okay with that; he cared more about money than morality. "Ethics," Mr. Smith would often say, "are the reason people like you are under the power of people like me. You have them, I don't. Simple as that."
Harry still had ethics. Rose didn't.
"You really should kill him," Rose said. She gave this advice every time Harry saw Mr. Smith, and even sometimes he didn't (then Harry looked around, and sure enough, there was Mr. Smith).
"Come on, brat," Mr. Smith said, and yanked Harry to his feet. "Got a real special appointment for you."
Harry was pulled through the corridors of the Institution. He knew what was coming. When a resident had a "special appointment," they left for an hour and returned empty inside.
He'd looked up the term. Lobotomy.
"Harry!" shouted Rose. "Stop this! Fight back!"
Uncle Vernon was grinning ear-to-ear. The smile was frightening on his face. He handed over a wad of cash; Mr. Smith took the money and pocketed it.
"How unfortunate we cannot do anything for your nephew, Mr. Dursley," he said with a simper. "He has simply grown more and more violent. I'm afraid there's nothing we can really do."
He was pulled into the room. Inside was a doctor and a single chair with straps on it. Mr. Smith gave some money to the doctor, who took it.
"Come on, Harry! Do something!"
Harry was forced into the chair and strapped in. The doctor put on two gloves. "Now then, Harry is it? This won't hurt a bit."
The whirr of the drill started.
"What is this?"
Harry opened his eyes, unaware that he had closed them. A woman in a strange black robe stood in the doorway. Uncle Vernon was spluttering, and Mr. Smith and the doctor simply looked confused.
"Ma'am, this is a necessary procedure. This boy has extraordinarily violent tendencies. I'm afraid this is the only option available."
"Stupefy," the woman said, and a bolt of red light flew from a stick held in her hand. The light struck the doctor, who crumpled to the floor. The woman said the same word twice, striking both Mr. Smith and Uncle Vernon.
"Harry?" the woman asked. Harry simply blinked at her. Yet another hallucination? "Harry, my name is Minerva McGonagall. I'm from Hogwarts?"
"Severus?" asked McGonagall.
Severus Snape was surprised. The Transfiguration mistress very rarely sought him out.
"Yes?"
"I recently retrieved Harry Potter from an orphanage," the woman said. "And I'm worried about his mental state."
"An orphanage?" asked Snape curiously.
"Apparently when he was seven, a fire started," McGonagall explained. "His aunt, cousin and sister all perished. He and his Uncle were lucky enough to escape."
"Very well," Snape said. He watched McGonagall bring a small boy into his office. The boy had a mop of unruly black hair and piercing emerald green eyes.
"I'm going to enter your mind," he told the boy. "And we'll make sure everything's okay."
The boy nodded.
"Legilimens!"
Harry found himself in an outdoor pavilion. The floor was a checkered pattern of black and white squares, and next to him stood the man named Snape.
"Harry," said Rose. "Don't do this, Harry. I'm here to protect you, and I can't do that if you go any further."
"Who is that?" asked Snape.
Harry was taken aback. First, that Snape could hear Rose at all – and second, that Rose sounded as though she was pleading with him.
"That's Rose," Harry said. He took a step forward, and another step, until he had left the pavilion entirely. Then he walked to the hedges that formed a wall around the pavilion, and followed them to a small wooden gate.
"Please stop, Harry," Rose said.
Harry opened the gate.
Harry had burned breakfast. The smell of smoke wafted from the kitchen.
"BOY!" bellowed Uncle Vernon.
Harry was in for it, he knew. Uncle Vernon came lumbering into the kitchen, face purpling with rage.
"Obviously, boy," he hissed, "you can't learn something simple enough as making bacon! So I suppose I'll have to teach you."
He turned around and lumbered away. Harry had a fleeting moment of hope – maybe he wasn't going to be punished – which fell into a cold despair when his Uncle returned. This time, shoving Rose in front of him.
"No," Harry said, little more than a whisper. Uncle Vernon's belt came off.
He cringed.
WHACK!
WHACK!
WHACK!
"Stop it!" Harry yelled.
WHACK!
"Please!"
WHACK!
Tears ran down his face. He could do nothing but watch as Uncle Vernon laid into Rose.
WHACK!
WHACK!
WHACK!
WHACK!
WHACK!
Uncle Vernon put his belt back on, now sporting a grin.
"See?" he said jovially. "Next time you won't burn the bacon, will you?"
"What happened?"
He was on his back, staring at an oddly colored sky. Snape stood over him.
"A memory," said Harry. "I didn't remember it, but now I do. Uncle Vernon – I burned the bacon when I was seven. He beat Rose for it, and when he was done, he smiled like it was the greatest thing in the world."
He pushed himself up and looked around. The hedges formed a maze.
"Follow the left hand path," said Snape, seeing where Harry was looking. "You're guaranteed to get to the exit."
Harry nodded and turned left.
"Stop, Harry," Rose said, now sounding panicked. "Please. You're only hurting yourself. I can take these memories, you can't. Don't – stop hurting, please. Let me protect you."
The path turned right.
"Are you sure you want to continue?" Snape asked.
For a moment, Harry paused. "I need to," he said finally. "I need to be stronger."
He didn't notice that they had reached the center of the maze until he bumped into a stone statue. Aunt Petunia stood there, immortalized in stone. In one hand she held a mirror, but she was looking past it. Drips of red liquid fell from her stone eyes. At the base of the statue was a black door.
Harry steeled himself before he pushed it open.
"When we return, I expect this to be spotless," Aunt Petunia told them.
"Come on, Pet," Uncle Vernon bellowed from the entryway. "We'll just have them do it again if they get it wrong."
She hurried from the room, "accidentally" knocking Rose into the refrigerator.
Rose almost immediately grabbed a slice of bread from the counter and stuffed it into her mouth. "I haven't eaten since yesterday," she explained through the bread. Harry nodded and started cleaning. When they were alone, it was how they did work: one of them got the basic necessities they were usually denied, and the other did the work they were ordered to do.
"What are you doing?" a shrill voice interrupted them.
Aunt Petunia.
Her hand smacked Rose's cheek and the bread fell out. Aunt Petunia ground her shoe in it. "Stealing?" she shrieked. "Stealing our hard-earned food? How dare you, you...you freak!"
She grabbed Rose's hair and dragged her to the cupboard under the stairs. With a shove, Rose was sent into the cupboard door. She bounced off and the door unlatched; another shove sent Rose into the cupboard, and the door was slammed shut and locked behind her.
"I'll be checking the food, boy," hissed Aunt Petunia. "If I find a single thing missing, she'll go another week without food!"
"Rose was being starved," Harry explained without any prompting. "Aunt Petunia hurt her when she took a slice of bread."
It took a moment for him to realize they were no longer in a hedge maze. Instead, both he and Snape were in a forest. Mist covered the ground and obscured anything far enough away.
"I'm going to have to stop you," Rose's voice echoed around them. A growl came from the forest around them. "I don't want to hurt you, but it won't be as painful as it will be if you come any further."
Three wolves came from the mist around them. Their fur was pitch-black, and their jaws were bared. Their eyes were a bright red, and they stalked forward with a predatory grace.
"Bombarda!" Snape said. He had pulled out a stick while Harry wasn't looking, and somehow caused one of the wolves to be flung away, back into the mist.
The other two wolves attacked, one leaping at Harry, and the other flinging itself at Snape. Harry stumbled backwards, falling on the ground. Just as the wolf was about to land on top of him, his fingers latched on something that he pulled from the ground and held in front of him.
It was a large knife.
The wolf slid forward along the blade, blood dripping from the steel and onto Harry's clothes. Its eyes were locked on Harry's as they flickered from blood red to emerald green, and then the eyes dulled and the wolf slipped to one side.
He stood up and looked at Snape. The man was scanning the immediate area for more threats, but obviously found none, because he put his stick away.
They continued onward.
Harry didn't know how long it took, but they eventually they reached the edge of the forest. In front of them was a cheery-looking field.
He took a deep breath and stepped forward.
"Let's have a look, then!" came the gleeful voice of Piers Polkiss. He was one of Dudley's friends, invited over while the Dursleys were away.
"Yeah, come on!" came another voice. Malcolm Gordon, Harry thought his name was, but he wasn't sure. He rarely had any interaction with them further than being beaten up, which didn't exactly require introductions.
He tried to see what Dudley's gang was doing, and when he did see, his stomach dropped. Rose had been cornered and held down by Piers Polkiss, and Dudley was slowly lifting her shirt.
"Come on!" yelled Gordon again. "Let's see her tits!"
There was a flash of motion. Rose had contorted her leg to strike directly between Piers's legs. While Piers was howling in pain, she had lifted her torso up and slammed it backwards, straight into Dudley's crotch. Harry was behind Gordon before the boy knew it, and attacked the same region on the third boy.
"What is this?" Uncle Vernon hissed from behind him.
"They -" Harry began before a blow to the head sent him staggering sideways.
"You assaulted my son and his two closest friends," Vernon continued in the same low hiss.
There was another blow to the head. Harry was seeing double, and had a ringing in his ears. Then, as though in slow motion, he saw two copies of Uncle Vernon's legs swinging upwards. There was a second or two of nothing at all, then a furious torrent of pain boiled up from between his legs. He fell forward into a ball, trying in vain to stop the pain coursing through his body in pulsing waves of agony.
"Dudley and his friends tried to molest Rose," said Harry. "She – we – stopped them. Uncle Vernon came, though, and kicked me between the legs."
"I know," said Rose, and she was in front of him.
The three of them were in a throne room, where Rose sat regally.
"I'm so sorry," said Harry.
"THEN WHY WON'T YOU STOP?" screamed Rose, her anger suddenly flaring, then disappearing just as quickly. "Just...stop. Leave. Go back. Let me be strong for you."
"I can't," Harry said simply. And he stepped forward to the throne and clasped Rose in a tight embrace.
He was in his cupboard, listening to the screams. Every night, he would be sent to bed. The screams would start, and last for around fifteen minutes. Then, they would stop.
He heard the sounds of pure terror through the house. Why didn't anyone else hear? Why wouldn't anybody listen?
There was a thud against the door.
"No, please!" the screams started again. "Please, not Harry!"
There was another dull thud.
"Please!"
He curled up on his bed, trying to cover his ears.
The door opened a hair's breadth before slamming shut again. There was a fleshy smack, and the door opened. Rose's dress was torn and hanging from her body. Uncle Vernon was behind her, pants around his knees.
"See, freak?" he asked, a grin contorting his face. "This is what you deserve."
He stepped forward. Rose tried to stop him, stand in his way, but he simply slammed her head against the wall and she went limp. Harry scrambled back against the wall of his cupboard and tried to escape his Uncle, but it was pointless. Vernon had power, so what Vernon wanted, Vernon got.
Vernon grabbed him and pulled him from the cupboard.
"NO!" he shouted, and there was power flowing through his veins. There was a blast of heat, and the walls were suddenly painted with red and orange flames. He ran. He could hear Uncle Vernon bumbling behind him in pain, letting out grunts and yells of rage and pain, but he ignored the man and continued, barreling out the front door.
He turned, then, once he was safely outside the house. His clothes were singed and his feet gave the familiar tingle of burns, but he turned and stared behind him.
Rose was trying to follow him outside the house. She was crawling on the ground, hand over hand, her face turned towards him in supplication.
Then the burning wall above the front door fell and blocked her from view.
"I'm sorry," he said.
Snape looked at him curiously. "What did you see?" he asked.
McGonagall watched as Harry Potter started mumbling. She leaned forward to listen more closely.
"I'm sorry," the boy said. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so so sorry."
The room was grimy and dank. Light from a high window was the only source of illumination; the residents would not appreciate anything better.
Inside was a boy of around eleven, staring blankly at a wall, not moving. He had messy black hair and green eyes that might once have been called emerald. Now, however, they were dull, lifeless. His head was bandaged from the recent operation.
"I'm sorry," he kept repeating. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."
Nobody heard.