A lot of insomnia brought this on... Happy 5am! (I hope most of you are sleeping at least.)
Anyway, I read a theory about this somewhere on tumblr I think, and the idea stuck with me a bit, so here it is.
I don't own Harry Potter.
Just a Dream
The lights in the Hospital Wing were too bright as Harry opened his eyes and squinted up at the illuminated ceiling above him. He groaned subtly at the burn that the light caused in his eyes and brought a hand up to shield his gaze. Or at least, he tried to. Rather, he found that his arm was encased in a thick, hard plaster cast that extended up past his elbow, his entire arm elevated above his body in a sling of sorts.
He pulled his arm out of the sling and onto his lap as he struggled to sit up in shock. His eyes were still adjusting to the light, making it difficult to make out the majority of the details around him. A faint beeping was emanating from somewhere behind his bed, seemingly keeping time with his heartbeat which was now pounding in his ears.
"Ah, Mr. Potter. You're awake."
A gentle feminine voice swept over Harry, and he whirled around toward the sound. The cool metal of his glasses touched the fingers of his uncasted hand, and he slipped them on gratefully.
A kind-looking woman with long brown hair stood at the foot of his bed, smiling friendlily at him. He immediately noticed the absence of robes, and his eyes narrowed involuntarily; she wore a long white lab coat with her name embroidered neatly on it in blue. L. Emerson, M.D. He was in a Muggle hospital.
"Where am I?" he demanded, his voice sharp and direct.
"You're in the hospital, Mr. Potter. Do you remember how you got here? You had a bit of a nasty fall," Dr. Emerson said in a honeyed voice, moving closer to peer at one of the machines behind his bed. The beeping seemed to be speeding up.
"Of course I remember," Harry snapped. Of course he did. It had been the Quidditch match against Slytherin, and he had been so focused on the Snitch fluttering in front of him, so close to wrapping his fingers around it that he hadn't even seen the Bludger that was streaking towards him. He looked down at his casted hand at the memory of falling from his broom and hitting the grass of the Quidditch pitch with a sickening crunch in his arm. "How did I get here?"
"Your cousin Dudley brought you in, along with an interesting account of how you broke your arm." She gestured with pale, dainty fingers to the limb in question.
Harry scrubbed his free hand against his face. This wasn't making any sense. He should have been in the Hospital Wing under the watchful care of Madam Pomfrey, not in some Muggle hospital that his cousin had brought him to. His mind couldn't process how he had left Hogwarts so quickly, much less without any memory of it.
Dr. Emerson seated herself in a beige chair with wheels and rolled to his bedside. "Harry, what happened yesterday?"
Harry's mind was spinning, a spot in his forearm throbbing painfully as he struggled to organize his thoughts. "I was – I was flying," he began, rubbing his hand over the cast absentmindedly. Dr. Emerson's eyes followed his actions, a strange look on her face. "It wasn't even my fault – or maybe it was. I don't know, really. But the Blu – "
Harry stopped abruptly, his cheeks suddenly burning hotly. The Statute of Secrecy. How could he have forgotten?
"Harry, please, would you tell me what happened? Everything that you can remember?"
He stared at her from his bed, debating what to tell her, and finally settled on the truth. As he recounted his tale of the Quidditch match and the stray Bludger, he watched Dr. Emerson's brow furrow more and more. When he had finally reached the end of the story, she offered him a tentative smile.
"Have you ever heard of Dissociative Identity Disorder? Or Multiple Personality Disorder?" When Harry shook his head in confusion, she continued. "It's a sort of extreme dissociation from reality, Harry, and it's quite common in victims of… abuse."
Harry's derisive snort spoke volumes more than his words ever could. "Abuse? You think I was abused?"
"Why are you here today, Harry?"
"I fell off my broomstick. I already told you that. And I know that you don't believe me, because you're a Muggle, but that doesn't make my story untrue," Harry spat, his confusion dissipating and leaving a deep frustration.
Dr. Emerson pulled a thick chart from the foot of his bed and flipped it open. "Do you know the reasons why you've come in in the past?" She ran a slim finger down the page she was looking at. "A deep cut to the arm, severe burns, a nasty knock to the head, a shattered arm, another knock to the head," she read promptly, "and all with some form of magical excuse to accompany them. I've seen you more times than I could count on my fingers over the years, and I've never once heard a sensible reason, nor have I ever seen your guardians."
"How do you even know about those?" Harry asked in confusion. "I was always in the hospital wing at Hogwarts."
"No, Harry, you were here being treated by me every time. You only thought you were at Hodwards, or whatever it's called. Rather, your concerned neighbor brought you in early on until eventually your cousin started bringing you more and more." Her voice was gentle, and Harry excused her mispronunciation of Hogwarts because after all, she was a Muggle.
"I don't – I don't understand," Harry stuttered. Panic was starting to constrict his chest slightly. Dr. Emerson reached out and grasped his uninjured hand.
"I know this is scary, but believe me when I say that it's going to be okay. Your brain has believed that you are someone else for quite some time now, and you have attributed a significant portion of your identity to that person. It's okay to be scared right now."
Harry was confused. And a little bit angry. And deeply terrified. Magic didn't exist. There was no wand, no Hogwarts, no Ron and Hermione waiting in the hallway for their allotted visiting time. For Merlin's sake, he had been brought in by Dudley.
No, not Merlin's sake. Merlin probably had never even existed.
Dr. Emerson was giving him a concerned look, and when her brown eyes met his, Harry finally gave in to his prickling eyes and tightening throat. He cried. He cried for the friends that he would never meet, the experiences that he would never have, and the twinkling blue-eyed mentor that he would never learn from. And he cried knowing that at the end of the day, he would have to return to the Dursleys' with the relatives that hated him more than he could bear. He wondered idly if he had merely imagined being moved to Dudley's second bedroom, if he still lived in the wretched cupboard under the stairs.
After a fair bit of sniffling and eye wiping, Harry choked out his question. "How did I really get here?"
Dr. Emerson smiled again from where she was still holding his hand by his bedside. "Your cousin Dudley brought you in, remember?"
"Yes, but why am I here? How did this happen?" He nodded toward his casted arm, staring down at it.
"Your cousin said that you had an altercation of sorts with your uncle, Harry. Do you these happen often, at least as far as you can remember?" Harry nodded miserably, still looking at his broken arm. "Has he ever hurt you? Hit you, perhaps?" Harry paused this time before nodded again. "And was this the first time that he, say, pushed you down the stairs?" Her voice was gentle yet Harry still stiffened as the words fell on his ears.
"No," Harry whispered, "but this may be the first time that I've actually been brought to a doctor as a result. Was it really that bad?"
"Your forearm was nearly bent at a right angle, so I would reckon that it was pretty bad," the doctor responded with a hint of suppressed amusement in her voice.
"That's why Dudley brought me in, then," Harry muttered, mainly to himself. His lips turned up a bit in spite of the heaviness that seemed to have settled on his shoulders. "Probably scared of the sight."
"While I will say that he certainly looked a bit frightened, he also looked quite concerned. And I do believe that he's waiting for you outside, along with a few social workers if you'll let them speak to you." When Harry hesitated, Dr. Emerson continued, "Please, Harry. They can help. And perhaps an escape from the trigger can aid your recovery."
Harry finally nodded, although his stomach had begun churning even more at the thought of seeing the social workers. Even if he never returned to the Dursleys' – now that blood wards weren't an issue apparently – he would have nowhere to go. Hogwarts had always been his home, but there was no Hogwarts to return to.
Dr. Emerson left and when she returned, Dudley's heavy, lumbering footsteps accompanied the slim doctor's. Harry looked up at his beefy cousin impassively, albeit a bit grateful that he didn't have to face the social workers just yet.
"Hey, Harry," Dudley offered quietly, standing awkwardly beside his bedside.
Harry noticed Dr. Emerson discreetly slip away from them as he answered, "Hey." After a brief moment, he added, "Thanks for helping me."
Dudley's eyes strayed to the cast encasing Harry's arm. "I – I had to. And I had to tell the doctor what happened too."
"Why's that?"
Dudley was quiet for a long moment, shifting his gaze to the floor. "Because I'm scared Dad isn't going to stop one day."
Harry felt slight irritation seep into his body again. "I can take care of myself, thank you very much."
"No, you can't," Dudley interjected heatedly. "You hardly ever fight back anymore and when you do, it only makes it worse. Plus, you've got this whole magic thing in your head that isn't even true. You waved this little stick from the back garden in Dad's face one night when Aunt Marge was over and he nearly killed you. Do you even remember that?"
Harry's heart sunk as he realized that his holly and phoenix feather wand that he had loved so deeply was merely a branch that he had snapped off one of the trees in the backyard. He could almost palpably feel the loss, even though he was now fairly sure that the wand had never even truly existed – at least not in the way that he believed it did.
When Harry stayed silent, Dudley continued. "So I had to tell the doctor, Harry. They'll take you somewhere safe where my mum and dad can't hurt you anymore."
Harry's voice was hollow when he responded, "You know they might take you away too if they see them as unfit to be parents."
There was a pause. "I know."
When Dr. Emerson returned a few minutes later, Dudley took it as his opportunity to leave. He gave Harry an awkward goodbye and scurried out the door.
Harry watched him go and figured that he truly was grateful for his cousin's help. He would never be close with Dudley, especially after the way they grew up side by side with such different circumstances and such tension between them. But he truly did appreciate that Dudley had looked past all of that and taken Harry to the hospital and even told the truth to the doctor even with the risk of losing his parents himself.
"That was quick," came Dr. Emerson's soft voice as she approached his bed again. She finally returned his casted arm to the hanging sling that it had been in when he had first woken. "How are you feeling?"
"Overwhelmed," he answered honestly, "and a little scared."
"That's all normal, I promise." She started tapping away at the computer next to his bed. "Harry, is it alright if I bring in the social workers? You can talk as little or as much as you want to. They won't push if you don't feel comfortable, but they will definitely help if you let them."
Harry didn't want to talk to the social workers. Although the past few years with the Dursleys seemed to be wiped from his memory aside from miserable summers, he remembered his early years under the stairs frighteningly well. And he remembered the promises of dire consequences if he ever told his primary school nurse the truth behind his skeletal frame and frequent bruises. The instinct to stay quiet about his relatives was still ingrained deeply in his mind, and he felt uneasy even trying to overcome it.
"They can come in at least," Harry conceded, at least slightly reassured by the fact that he hadn't given them permission to speak to him. He still had a small semblance of control over his situation at the very least.
Dr. Emerson smiled and went to get them. When she returned, two men dressed in sharp black suits approached the bed.
Harry stared. The man on the right was the spitting image of Kingsley Shacklebolt.
The Kingsley lookalike smiled warmly. "Hey, Harry. Do you remember me?"
Harry hesitated. "Kingsley?"
"No, my name is Stanley Ringer, and I'm with social services. I've been here a few times in the past to speak with you," the man explained, seeming slightly bemused by Harry's response. He gestured toward the man next to him. "This is Alan Davidson."
The social workers were very polite, and Harry gave them small bits of information about his life with the Dursleys. They had scribbled into tiny leather-bound notebooks the entire time, and when they finally left Harry alone an hour later, it was with the promise that they would be launching an investigation into his home life.
Finally left alone in the hospital since he had arrived, Harry took the chance to look around. He appeared to be sharing a room with someone, although the curtain to the other patient's bed was drawn shut completely. He was still slightly unnerved by the appearance of the man who had truly looked exactly like Kingsley, and was trying to figure out how that was even possible. He wanted desperately to believe that his time in the hospital was all one big misunderstanding and that the social worker that he had just spoken to was actually Kingsley Shacklebolt, but it seemed that his brain was sick of creating fantasies at the moment.
As the nurse swept into the room, interrupting his train of thought, Harry just closed his eyes.
"Alright, Mr. Potter, I'm just going to give you a bit of medicine that the doctor ordered, okay?" He heard her fiddling around next to his bed as she explained, "This is a drug named Restoril, and it will calm you down a bit as well as help you fall asleep."
Harry finally looked up at her, and he figured that he nearly had a heart attack when he saw the nurse's face and bushy hair.
"Hermione?"
"What? No, my name is Whitney, and I'm your nurse." She paused. "Do you know where you are, Mr. Potter?"
He scowled. "Of course I do. I'm in the hospital; everything that I thought I knew over the past five years has just been my brain fucking with me; and now I've got social services breathing down my neck because for the first time in my entire life, someone actually got me to a hospital." His voice had risen the more he had talked, and he suddenly felt a guilty rush at the thought of possibly waking up his roommate. It was quite late after all.
Whitney looked like she was at a loss for words, and she turned to continue administering his medication after a brief moment. "Like I said, Mr. Potter, the Restoril will help with the anxiety."
He took the red and pink capsule that she offered him and downed it with a cup of water.
"Can I at least have some ice?" Harry's voice was small.
The young nurse looked relieved at such a normal interaction, and left the room swiftly with the promise of some ice.
"That was quite rude, you know." A deep voice reached Harry's ears, and he nearly jumped in surprise. He figured the voice was coming from behind the curtain on the other side of the room.
"Well, I'm having a bit of a rough night," Harry bit back defensively.
"Trust me, I've heard." The man's voice carried an edge of annoyance.
Whitney came back in and handed Harry the cup of ice. He shook a few pieces into his mouth and chewed them slowly.
"Quite the imagination, I've heard as well. Magic castles and flying broomsticks and nonexistent sports? Count me in," the man mocked, and Harry felt a burst of irritation in him at the sound.
"Shut up, or you'll be the first person I curse when I lose touch with reality again," Harry shot back. The man scoffed.
The Restoril finally began to kick in, and as his nerves calmed a bit, Harry fell into a deep sleep.
When he awoke, the Hermione-esque Whitney had pulled back the curtains across the room to reveal Harry's roommate. He nearly cried in exasperation when he saw that it was none other than Severus Snape – or at least the man looked and apparently acted like him.
It seemed that the real world couldn't be kind to him for even a moment. His poor brain would never rest.
So, what did you think? I'd love to hear from you :)