Turning Tides

Chapter One: Pilot

By: Saadie

Summary: And really, Harry has Voldemort to thank for this one. Being the first and probably only person to be a living Horcrux and survive its removal turns out to have more cons than pros. Now if only Harry can survive it and the new world he must adapt to in order to survive, he might just actually end up thanking Voldemort for helping him find a place to belong to.

Disclaimer: I don't feel very rich right now so I must not own Harry Potter or One Piece. Alas, that is the lot life has given me. I shall content myself with fanfiction.

A/N: None of my stories are beta-d, I apologize to everyone for my horrible grammar, spelling, and just terrible writing skills in general.

He wakes up to a blur of white – pure, sterile white that tells him instantly that he's in the Hospital Wing. There's nothing out of the ordinary about that though, being here doesn't tell him anything. He's here so many times that his friends all jokingly call the Hospital Wing his second bedroom. Funny that. Dudley's second bedroom is filled with broken toys and nameless junk and his consists of a hospital bed. Fingers automatically grope for his glasses on the bedside table, sliding them on brings the numerous tallies on the ceiling into focus and he cracks a grin.

There's one tally for every time he ends up in this bed – his bed, Madame Pomfrey even let the Twins stick a plaque denoting "Harry's Bed" on the bedpost – and the ceiling tile is nearly filled. Madame Pomfrey has even joked that she'll have it removed and framed as a graduation gift to him, that they might even put it on display above his bed as a memento. He sits up gingerly, there's no pain as far as he can tell but with his luck it'd kick in the moment he tried to move. There's nothing that seems to be out of place though so he relaxes long enough to run a hand through his perpetually messy hair, messing it up even more than the pillow already had – what was he here for this time?

There's a loud cry of "Harry!" and then a brown blur with bushy hair ploughs into him, knocking his breath out of him and pushing him flat against the bed.

"Oof! Mione, I can't breathe when you do that!"

She pulls back, there are tears in her eyes and he's suddenly feeling more alert. There's something wrong, something wrong with him, something bad happened again. Even if the tears didn't clue him in, the way she still clings to his shirt and the way her lower lip is trembling would have set off warning bells in his head immediately.

"Oh Harry! Why do these things always have to happen to you?" she breaks off with half a sob and Ron steps up from to rest his hands on her shoulders with a grim smile, "It was all supposed to be over now, Hogwarts is being rebuilt, we were coming back to finish our last year, why does this have to happen now? Why can't the world just leave you alone?"

Hermione crushes him in her embrace again and this time Ron's large hand finds its way to Harry's shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze.

"Hey mate, good to see you're awake. How're you feeling?"

Harry blinks slowly, arms having come around Hermione's sobbing form to soothe her unconsciously, and catalogue his sensations mentally. "I feel fine, why, what's wrong, what happened?"

"You collapsed mate. Just fell down out of nowhere, scared most of us half to death. It was in the middle of lunch too, in the great hall, do you remember? Neville caught you just in time but most of the firsties and half of the second years started screaming and then it all just went to hell. People were convinced you had just up and dropped dead, that Voldemort was back, that a Deatheater had snuck in a killed you. It was crazy mate; we had to fight to levitate you to the Hospital Wing. Even now the wing's shut off to stop people from sneaking in to catch a peak of you. As to why though…" Ron's lips thin and he looks down at Hermione, "She'd best be the one to explain it mate, I still don't get half of what's going on."

It takes a few moments for Hermione to compose herself and draw back, settling against Ron's side with a sigh as she wiped the remnants of her tears away. "I'm sorry Harry, it's just, it feels like everything's just hitting me all over again what with the War only over a week ago…." she stops to take another deep breath to calm herself before continuing.

"It's the after-effects of being a horcrux Harry. It's never been documented, no one's had a living horcrux before, so no one really knows for sure what would happen. But it seems that Voldemort's soul was a part of you for so long it had attached itself into your soul too firmly for its removal not to affect you. When you were hit with the Avada Kedavra, the spell basically removed the fragment of his soul from your's by forcibly ripping it off. But because it had been attached to your soul for all these years, when it was ripped off, it damaged the surface of your soul too and left behind a wound. So that's the problem now Harry. It's left a hole in your soul that no one knows how to fix. It could heal itself over the years, it's doing that slowly even now. The real problem is that this healing process takes too long and for every moment that that hole remains Harry, you'll lose a part of yourself."

"I'm WHAT? What do you mean losing a part of myself?"

"Your memories, Harry. A person's soul is made up of spiritual energy, memories, and in the case of witches or wizards, their magic. Now magic is something that will regenerate itself in you, it's innate and so is spiritual energy; they stay within your body unless you release it intentionally. But memories are less attached to a person, they drift around more. They're easy to play around with, Obliviate and pensives prove that, and with the hole in your soul they can start drifting out. Part of this is because of the mind-link you shared with Voldemort; because of that, your memories are more susceptible to being pulled out of you since they're used to moving and going somewhere else. In a way, now that Voldemort has been killed, your memories are still flowing out through the same path the mind-link used to occupy, trying to find its way to the another end that's no longer there."

There was a tense silence in the Hospital Wing, Harry's hands were clenched in the bed sheets, his knuckles white. Why? Why did this always have to happen to him? Why not someone else, just for once? Why couldn't the world just cut him a break? For the first time in a long time he had thought that he could be happy. That all this was over already, that things could only get better. Now all in an instant, any semblance of normalcy, of happiness, had been ripped away from him once again.

Hermione's had reaches out to cover his and Ron's hand finds its way back to his shoulder again. Slowly Harry relaxes, objects that he hadn't even known where reacting to his magic stopped shaking, and he's glad for the comforting presence his two best friends provide. After everything, they were like the brother and sister he never had and even though everything is spinning out of his control, having them here with him makes it feel just a little bit better.

He gives off a weary sigh, one that tells them that he's resigned to his fate, that he's tired of fighting against the impossible over and over again. Hermione smiles sadly at his slumped figure and moves to wrap her arms around him, gently this time. After some internal debate, Ron also joins the hug awkwardly, prompting a slight giggle out of Hermione and a half chuckle out of Harry – really, for a child who grew up with five brothers and who has Molly Weasley as a mother, Ron was hilariously conscious of hugging other guys unless it was in the spur of the moment.

It seems to be forever that they just bask in each other's warmth and let the silence wash over them. Predictably, Ron is the first to draw away, clearing his throat self-consciously. Hermione turns her head to glance at him and the sight of the red tips of his ears sends her into giggles that she tries to muffle into Harry's shoulder.

"Oy! It's not that funny! Stop laughing woman!"

But it's no use, his vexed expression just sends her over the edge and she's letting out peals of laughter as she clutches her stomach, trying desperately to breathe. Harry chuckles under his breath as he watches Ron retaliate, whacking Hermione with a pillow as she squawks indignantly, ducking out from the second strike to hide on the other side of the bed. He leans back to take in his two best friends' antics; for a moment, everything seems right in the world as Hermione snags a pillow from a nearby bed and take a swing at Ron with a war cry. It isn't long before he's drawn into the fight as well and feathers are flying everywhere amidst shrieks of laughter and the occasional yelp when a pillow made contact harder than a pillow ought to have the right to. Finally they collapse in a heap on the bed out of breath, chests heaving as feathers settle around them.

Harry shifted uncomfortably as he felt the tip of some stubborn feather dig into his back. Finally giving up, he sat up abruptly, startling a yelp out of Hermione who almost falls off the bed. "Harry!"

"Sorry 'mione! Argh, is there a feather sticking out of my back? Can you pull it out?"

More shifting, searching fingers along his back and giggles before the sharp point of the feather is removed and he sighs in relief, plopping back down onto the bed. A while later Madame Pomfrey bustles in and clicks her tongue at the sight of the ruined pillows and the room's new feather decorations. She vanishes them with a wave of her wand and a mumbled spell before ordering Ron and Hermione out. She has a house elf bring up food for Harry and he eats while she waves her wand over him several times, casting this spell and that to check his vitals and everything else in between. Bidding him a goodnight after he begs off potions, Harry watches with a fond smile as she leaves the room, pulling the curtain shut behind her carefully.

Finally he's alone again and he lets out a soft sigh. At the end of the day he's still got a hole in his soul that no one knows what to do with and his life officially sucks. With a huff he turned onto his side roughly, "What to do now?"

"That's simple Harry Potter. You have to go somewhere else."

His head whips up at that familiar dreamy tone to stare into too large grey eyes that blink calmly in the dim light of the Hospital Wing.

"Luna?"

AN: Wow it's really been a while since I've written anything that I bothered posting. I just had this ridiculous urge to dabble in cross-overs. Fingers-crossed that this doesn't blow up in my face! I'm also contemplating venturing into the world of romance with this one and right now who Harry gets paired with is a total mystery. Feel free to shout out who you want to see him with! All suggestions will be taken into consideration (:

Comments and REVIEWS are much loved!

Saadie