Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and make no profit from this story.
It was always the same. They are in the living room, Frank blowing multicolored bubbles out of his wand while Neville shrieks and giggles and reaches for them with pudgy hands. Alice is stringing orange and green lights at the windows for the upcoming Halloween festivities and alternately checking on the pumpkin pie that is cooking in the kitchen. The warm smell is already sneaking into the living room and she breathes it in appreciatively.
And then the doorbell rings.
Frank opens the door.
"RUN!" He starts to shout but is choked off by the Cruciatus curse that paralyzes his voice and sends him convulsing to the floor.
Alice screams and dives for Neville who is staring wide-eyed at the intruders. She knew what happened next. The laughing while the pain went in waves through her, blurring her thoughts until she couldn't remember that life had ever been anything but the endless pain and drifting. Somewhere she knew all this and she screamed but it still happened again and again and…
Everything stopped. Someone new is there. He looks around curiously, spotting Neville rolled up under the couch where the Death Eaters had and would miss him entirely. Finally he inspects Alice, on the floor next to the big front window, and Frank, still lying before the front door. "This is not still happening. You've been cursed. It's after Halloween now." He steps over to Alice and moves her wand from her pocket into her hand. Then he does the same for Frank. "You're an auror, so you must know the Patronus charm. I'm going to unfreeze everything and then you need to cast your patronus, both of you. That should break Malfoy's handy-work. I know it's hard but you have to concentrate." He steps back and suddenly the laughter resumes.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!!!!" And everything breaks apart.
"Sir?" Marcia looked around the desk, peering down the hallway. "He was right here, Healer Phoebus!"
Alex Phoebus looked around as well, sighing impatiently. Suddenly a door far down the hallway opened and a man and a woman in hospital garb stepped out.
"Merlin!" Phoebus swore. "How did they wake up?" He hurried down the hall to restrain the two patients before they could hurt themselves or someone else.
Frank Longbottom met the doctor's gaze with clear eyes and held out his hand to the doctor. "Err, hello there Healer Phoebus. Do you think you could let us go home now?"
Phoebus' jaw dropped a foot.
"Let's see here...Privit Drive, number one…two…three…" The young man stopped in front of number four, Privit Drive and eyed the house reluctantly. He squared his shoulders and marched up the front walk, fingers toying with the wand in his pocket nervously. He rang the bell and waited, inspecting the perfect hedge rows of the neighborhood and the utter lack of character. Up and down the street the curtains rustled as interfering busybodies peered out to see, praying for something more exciting than their own lives or the daily soaps.
The door creaked open and a narrow, suspicious face peered out. "Yes?"
The young man did his best to disguise a grimace at the grating voice that came from Mrs. Petunia Dursley. "Mrs. Dursley? Thank you so much for protecting Harry Potter while we hunted down his parents' murderer. I've come to take him off your hands now." The thanks stuck like rotten milk in the back of his throat but he said them anyway.
Petunia sagged in visible relief. "Thank heavens! I don't know what we would have done if you hadn't come today. You know I have a wonderful little son of my own and we just can't take care of the boy too. And Vernon can't handle all that crying when he comes home from work. Come right in."
The woman kept up a steady stream of prattle as she led the young man into the house and into the kitchen. She smiled, a sickening and ingratiating expression. "You wait here and I'll be right back with the boy." Everything smelled overwhelmingly of lemons and cleaning solution.
She returned a few minutes later carrying a baby's car seat, a smaller basket with a blanket also on her arm. The toddler strapped into the car seat was red-faced but silent as fat tears rolled down his unhappy face. "He, ah, cries like that all the time." Petunia said nervously and deposited the whole armload on the kitchen table.
The young man fought hard to refrain from saying anything other than a thank you. He started to gather up the crying child and the other basket when Petunia cleared her throat purposefully. He looked up. "Yes?"
"You aren't going to take the car seat are you? It's Dudley's. We only put the boy in it so he couldn't get into any trouble."
The young man looked down at the buckle strapping Harry into the car seat and breathed in deeply, counting to ten before he forced a smile and released the restraint. "Upsy-daisy Harry. My, you're heavy, aren't you?" Baby Harry buried his wet face in the offered shoulder and sniffled as the other things were gathered up.
The young man nodded his head to Petunia Dursley. "Thank you again ma'am."
Without having even asked his name, Petunia Dursley watched the man walk out of her house with her nephew, never to return again.
Moments after disappearing from Privit Drive, one brown haired man and one dark haired toddler appeared on the front step of a badly beat-up house. The nearby houses were far better kept and, judging by the cars in the driveways, belonged to non-magical folk but the brown haired man didn't once look around as he pushed open the front door and stepped inside. Instantly a wizened bat-like creature about knee high came barreling toward them, screaming all the while.
"OUT! GET OUT! THIS IS THE FILTHY MASTER'S HOUSE! TRESPASSERS! MUD-BLOOD DEFILERS!"
The young man didn't even flinch. "Actually, I'm not a muggle-born, although it doesn't truly matter," he said as calmly as though he were relating the weather and then he spoke a strange spell that froze the creature in mid-step. All of this the toddler in his arms watched with wide-eyes.
"Mama?" Harry asked, obviously having recognized the use of magic as something his mother had done.
"Sorry Harry. Your mama is gone now. But it'll be ok, you'll see."
But the baby only understood that his mother wasn't coming back and began to whimper in earnest now, heartbreaking little sobs escaping the tiny body.
The young man sighed and set to work comforting the crying baby that would grow up to save the world.
It was hours later before he was able to get back to work. Patting down his pockets, his expression grew alarmed until he encountered a folded and torn piece of parchment in his back pocket.
"Accio quill!" He had to wait a few moments before a threadbare and spider-web covered quill came flying through the air to him. His nose wrinkled in distaste but he plucked it from the air anyway and then wiped it fastidiously on the hem of his cloak.
Unfolding the parchment, he studied it carefully. "Let's see…break curse at St. Mungo's, check. Rescue Harry…check."
He circled the next item on the list heavily and underlined it twice. His face was set into lines of hard determination. "So next I just have to…capture Peter Pettigrew."
Somewhere miles away, Percy Weasley's pet rat felt a terrible sensation in his spine and shuddered.
Author's Note: You have no idea how hard that scene inside the Longbottoms' minds was. I wanted to show that it was a scene that kept replaying and that it was sort of like a dream, where you know what's about to happen but can't stop it-except then someone did stop it. Hope it wasn't too confusing. Any suggestions on how to fix it would be appreciated. Also, did anyone catch the healer's name? I thought it was pretty funny…
