Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Twilight… shocking, I know.
AN: Sorry this took so long; I had to put my life back together before I could even think about writing. I re-wrote this chapter 5 times but I think I got it right this time. Sadly there is no Jake in this chapter, but he will show up in the next couple of chapters. Please let me know what you think!
Chapter 3
I had never been more thrilled to see a door in my life. After I 'woke up' I had to spend 5 more days in the infirmary before the Mediwizards decided I was healthy. Then they took me to the mental health ward. I couldn't blame them. Perhaps if I had shared my story of abuse with more than just my Godfather they wouldn't have thought I was crazy (just because I knew I was crazy didn't mean that they had to know). Maybe if I hadn't made Harry swear to never tell anyone about Andrew then he could have stopped them from committing me. And maybe if I hadn't screwed up my suicide I wouldn't have been here for the 3 weeks that they kept me monitored. Three weeks of perfectly planned out schedules and therapist appointments. Three weeks of grey walls and grey sheets and grey clothes. Three weeks of hell to atone for my failed attempt at finding peace.
It only took two days for me to figure out the mind of my new therapist Dr. Warren. It was easy to see that he didn't really care. He wanted me to be 'healed' so that I could leave but he only wanted it because it was his job to want it. There was no caring involved but I'd be willing to bet there was money; he probably got a bonus for a job well done every time someone was released. I used his lack of care to my advantage. It's easy to convince someone that you aren't mentally unbalanced when they aren't really paying attention. I said all the things he needed to hear.
"Trying to kill myself was the biggest mistake of my life."
"I'm just so relieved that someone found me in time."
"I don't know how I could have been so selfish, not seeing the pain my death would have caused my loved ones."
5 days after I figured out what he needed to hear he decided I was ready for the outside world. It was the Ministry of Magic that kept me in here for the last next 2 weeks of my sentence. Apparently there are laws about attempted suicide that I hadn't been informed of. One of the punishments for such an act was 3 weeks minimum in a mental health facility; the other, which was only bought up half an hour ago, was the confiscation of your wand. I was told that I could have it back when I was 21 if I passed their test to prove that I wasn't crazy anymore. 4 years and 5 months until I could have my wand back… I guess I wasn't finishing school. Gran, to put it mildly, wasn't happy about that and was currently arguing with a Ministry Official about a compromise, perhaps if I was supervised at all times while in possession of my wand I could be allowed to finish classes via home schooling. I didn't like that idea; we argued enough as grandmother and grandson how could we possibly handle student and teacher?
I was currently in the hospital waiting room staring longingly at the door. I wish my Gran would hurry up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Harry walk towards Gran and the man from the Ministry. He interrupted them but I couldn't hear what was said. I looked dejectedly back towards the door and resigned myself to waiting, but Harry came back only moments later.
"Ready to go?"
"We aren't waiting for Gran? She won't be happy with me if I just wander off."
"Let me worry about her. The ministry only ordered that you be under the supervision of a legal guardian and that includes me. Now then, are you ready to go?"
"Yes!"
*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*_*
My first day of freedom passed rather uneventfully; Harry and I walked around London for awhile before apparating to his house. Ginny made lunch and I played with James, Lily and Al. It felt like any other day that I had spent with them, so long as you excluded the looks Ginny Potter was giving me out of the corner of her eye. I tried to ignore her the best I could but I had to fake a loss of appetite when dinner came around just to escape.
The guest room at Harry's house had been mine for as long as I could remember. It was common knowledge that if I showed up, whether he already had a guest or not then I was to be given the room. It had happened before. Ginny's brother Charlie had come to stay with them two summers ago and was put up in the guest room; his third night there I showed up looking for a place to sleep that wasn't anywhere near my grandmother and successfully evicted Charlie and James in a total of ten minutes. James was moved into Al's room and Charlie was moved to James' room for the duration of my stay.
Since I was the primary occupant of the Potter's guestroom Harry had let me decorate it, Ginny hadn't been happy about that. It looked a lot like my room at home, except that this room was bigger. It had dark wood floors and paneling halfway up the walls. The top half of the wall and the ceiling were both painted a deep purple with stars and constellations painted in silver. There was a hanging globe light in the middle of the ceiling made to look like a full moon. One wall had two doors on it, the left one leading to the closet and the right one to the private bathroom. I had a double bed with sheets that matched the purple on the walls and a black bedspread. In one corner I had a small entertainment center with a TV, DVD/DVR and a CD player, in front of the window there was a desk with my laptop on it. Since Harry had been raised by Muggles he enjoyed Muggle technology and my Grandfather (that had died before I was born) had been a Muggleborn so he brought it into Gran's home, between the two of them I had become rather addicted to it.
Lying down on my bed I watched one of the enchanted stars shoot across my ceiling leaving a faint, shimmering trail behind it. As I laid there I thought about my life; from my earliest memory to the most recent. My first memory is of my dads face when he told me goodbye. There was a war going on and he had to go fight, I didn't know that at the time obviously but over the years I'd had the blanks filled in for me. I was only a few months old, to young for memories as far as most people are concerned, but I can clearly see my dads face leaning over the edge of my crib with what I recognize now as an apologetic look in his eyes. I remember grabbing his finger and holding on tight and I remember him turning and walking away. My next memory was very similar except it was my mum saying goodbye this time. She and I were both crying when she left. Neither of my parents came back.
One of the best memories of my life came when I was 5. I was chasing after a chipmunk in my back yard and kept falling down; one of the more prominent traits that I got from my mother was my horrible lack of balance, walking across a smooth, stable surface is beyond my abilities, most the time the thing that trips me up is my other foot but sometimes it really is nothing, absolutely nothing. But back to my memory, I was having trouble running, and then all of a sudden I wasn't. Suddenly I was running really fast and I wasn't tripping all over myself and I was about to catch that stupid chipmunk. Then my grandmother walked outside, took one look at me and screamed. That was the day we found out what happened when you crossed a werewolf with a metamorphamagus.
My father's werewolf genes crossed with my mother's shape shifting genes gave me the ability to change into a wolf at will. Almost like I was born an animagus. On full moons I get the urge to change and I normally do so now just for the hell of it but I don't have to. I'm much more graceful with four feet than I am with two, which I love by the way, and I'm very fast as a wolf. I've always had some rather wolfy characteristics as well, like my affinity for very rare red meat and my slightly more pronounced canine teeth. And the annoying habit for biting people that I never outgrew. As for my mother she left me more than my embarrassingly clumsy nature, thanks to her I can change the look of my hair and eyes at will. Actually it's not entirely at will, sometimes when my emotions get the better (or worse) of me my coloring will change without my consent, almost like a mood ring. When I'm beyond enraged my hair and eyes turn black, when I'm very relaxed and totally Zen they tend to take on a blue tint, and most embarrassingly when I blush its not always just my skin, depending on the level of humiliation my hair has been known to go red as well.
Back to memory lane. When I was 11 I started school at Hogwarts. The start of the year feast had been horrendous, I had fallen on my way to be sorted and spent the rest of dinner dodging questions about my sudden switch from brunette to redhead. After dinner I got lost on the way to the Ravenclaw common room, we were supposed to be following the prefects but I got distracted at the library and fell behind. Speaking of the library, now might be a good time to mention that I am a dork. I read everything I can get my hands on, I'm obsessed with Lord of the Rings (I even taught myself Elvish), I love to play chess, I'm a history geek, I can solve a Rubix Cube in 15 minutes, the answer to everything is 42, I still dress up for Halloween, a pirate-ninja would be the coolest thing ever, I have a lightsaber, and I'm addicted to anime.
Sorry, back to my memory, I got lost on my way to the common room and by the time I found it an hour later I didn't even have the password to get in. My first night in Hogwarts Castle was spent on the floor outside our dormitories. During my first week of school I became painfully aware of the fact that I didn't get along well with the other people in my year, my entire house if were being honest. I was the youngest person in the school (my birthday is August 31st and school starts on September 1st), and I was always a little small for my age, I have only just recently hit what could be considered average height. I was an easy target to be picked on because of my size, and my almost paralyzing fear of conflict. My "flight or fight" instincts have always run more along the line of "flight or flight faster".
Anyways, the next memory that came to mind was from my third year at Hogwarts. It was November 17th and I was sitting by the lake working on an essay when I first saw Andrew. I had no problem admitting that he was handsome, I was only just 13 but I had never had any interest in girls, I knew from early on that my tastes were definitely of the male variety. He was a year ahead of me in school and nearly 15 at the time. He was several inches taller than me, with short brown hair and light blue eyes. I had only realized that I was staring when he caught and held my gaze, one eyebrow raised in question and a slight smirk on his lips. I could feel myself blushing, embarrassed at having been found out, and I knew that my hair had probably taken on a nice red tint but instead of laughing Andrew's smirk slid into an easy smile and he winked at me before running to catch up with his friends.
That first sighting was a rather bittersweet memory, as was the next one. It was only a week later that Andrew asked me to go to Hogsmead with him. I remember our first date like it was yesterday. He had been so polite that day, holding doors and pulling out chairs. He asked all sorts of questions and seemed truly interested in the answers. He held my hand more often than not and had surprised me with a trip to the book store even though he didn't care much for reading. When he left me at the entrance to my dorm he had kissed me, my very first kiss. It had been a wonderful day and that day turned into three blissful months. After three months something changed, even now I couldn't identify what it was but it marked the beginning of a downward spiral from joy to pain.
The Gryffindor quidditch practice had just ended and as Andrew put his bludger's bat away I made my way down from the stands where I had been watching. It had become routine for me to sit in the stands and do my homework while he practiced every Tuesday Thursday and the occasional Saturday. I had made it down to the pitch only tripping once on the stairs but instead of waiting for me like he always did he was nowhere to be found. Frustrated, and a little hurt, I went in search only to find him an hour later as he was on his way to dinner. I managed to corner him before he got to the Great Hall but he said he was hungry and if I needed to talk to him I could find him after he ate. I didn't eat much at dinner and made sure that I left the hall only seconds after he did. I still had to run to catch up but finally I got the chance to talk to him. I asked him why he had left me at the Pitch after practice and his only answer was that he had had more important things on his mind. That hurt quite a bit but I pushed on wanting to know what was bothering him. I followed him down three hallways trying to get a more definitive answer out of him before he snapped. We had just began walking up a staircase when I tripped, fell forward and knocked him down, I apologized immediately but he didn't seem to be listening so I reached out and put my had on his back. Before I knew what was happening he had turned around and hit me across the face. I sat stunned while he began yelling at me for being clumsy. I managed to hold off on crying for 5 minutes before I lost the battle and tears began streaming down my face. He seemed to snap out of his rage almost instantly. In seconds he went from yelling to trying to comfort me; he wrapped his arms around me and began apologizing. We stayed like that for ten minutes, him whispering about how much he loved me and that he never meant to hurt me and me with tears still rolling silently down my cheeks trying to make sense of what had just happened.
With that memory floating around in my head I began drifting off into a restless sleep. The last thing I heard before sleep claimed me completely was my grandmother flooing into Harry's living room downstairs and demanding to know where I was. I silently thanked the gods of sleep for keeping me temporarily away from her ranting and rolled over just as the world of dreams pulled me under.
