A/N if the world was a perfect place and if inspiration came consistently, then this would really just be a continuation of chapter one. However, because it didn't come to me when I was writing that it has now been relegated to the lowly status of chapter two. (and no I'm not sure that makes sense either). This story will be drawing a bit of inspiration from the movie K-pax. For all of you who don't know what that is you might want to go see it; it's not actiony or adventury, but it is interesting and makes you wonder (that isn't to say my story will be without action or adventure). For those of you who are familiar with the story you need not worry that harry will end up catatonic.
Again this is coming out a lot later than I thought it would. I had half the chapter written the day after last post and it just sat on my computer mocking me. So maybe I'll do better, maybe not. You probably shouldn't expect any more frequent than once a week… if we're lucky.
Chapter Two
Albus Dumbledore was born July 16th 1853 and today, despite his best efforts and a large quantity of sherbet lemons, he was feeling all 143 of his years. He sighed softly as one of the small silver instruments on his desk chimed and released a small tendril of smoke that curled in upon itself to form the words KINGSLEY SHACKLEBOLT, before unfurling and twisting into a series of numbers counting down. When the numbers reached ONE Albus called out and, at the sound of his voice, the smoke dispersed leaving an innocent looking silver trinket once again. "Enter Kingsley." Kingsley burst into the office with much less decorum than he would normally display, and Dumbledore couldn't suppress another sigh. "What has happened now?"
"Dumbledore! It's the boy. It's Potter, he woke up."
OOO
Dumbledore leaned back in his chair considering the pensive before him and the memories it contained, ignoring for the moment the impatient Kingsley, waiting for Dumbledore's response to the memories within. "Why would he drink the potions? The rest I understand, but why drink unknown potions, especially in such quantity?"
The question wasn't directed at anyone in particular and was more musing than truly seeking an answer from anyone; however, Kingsley had an answer. "I asked the same question, and Jessica had an idea that I think holds merit, especially if the stories about the boy were even half true. You see Jessica's the youngest Auror on the force, just got her Red Robes last month, and she said that whenever she was sick in Hogwarts and she had to sleep in the hospital wing, Poppy Pomfrey would leave out any potions she needed to take on the night stand. So she could take them immediately upon waking the next morning, when they are most effective. She thought, and we agree, that he probably wasn't functioning at his best when he woke, and that he automatically took the potions, believing he was meant to." Kingsley waited with an expectant look to see how Dumbledore would respond to their theory.
Dumbledore cocked his head to the side considering, before his beard twitched and he gave Kingsley a look that despite his own 57 years could only be described as grandfatherly and made him feel slightly giddy. "That, my dear boy, seems to be a most likely reason." Shacklebolt missed how quickly Dumbledore's seeming good cheer faded back into a tired countenance as he tried desperately not to blush and smile at the praise as he would when he was a shy student at Hogwarts many decades past. "So young Harry woke from soullessness to imbibe more than a dozen vials of experimental potions before he lost the ability to continue drinking them, then he stumbled from the room, spilling the cart of the remaining potions in the process and slowing any response the Department of Mysteries might have made. Then he somehow made his way to the one room and one doorway in all of the Department he could use to leave completely undetected." Dumbledore paused in his recitation to throw a piercing look at Kingsley, as if he could, with a look, draw out all details that had been missing. "Seems entirely too contrived to have happened all by coincidence."
"Are you saying someone helped him? Because the recordings didn't detect anyone else, and I don't know of any spell, cloak, or enchantment that those recorders can't pierce."
"Someone? No. Something… perhaps." Dumbledore said with more of his usual mysterious air than Kingsley had heard him use in some time. In fact, Dumbledore's eyes were twinkling, something that had been exceedingly rare since the sentencing of the boy.
Kingsley resisted the urge to roll his eyes and despite his slight confusion he chose not to try and pry any more answers from Dumbledore about this something that supposedly guided the boy through the Department of Mysteries. Asking instead, "You said he made his way to the only door he could use to leave, but he passed through the veil. Doesn't that kill anyone who passes through it?"
"Kill anyone that passes through it? Goodness, no. You yourself have probably passed through it dozens, if not hundreds, of times in your life." At Kingsley's confused and questioning look Dumbledore explained. "Perhaps if I use different words you shall be able to put it together. The veil was created long ago as a portal to all space, someone who steps through it has an equal chance of appearing anywhere in this universe. Now that is less than helpful when more than ninety-nine percent of the universe are places where a wizard could not survive and an even smaller percent of the universe is somewhere a wizard might want to be. So the wizards of long ago also developed an enchantment that acted as a key to this portal so that they could tether themselves to a certain point in the universe so that when they traveled through the veil they would go to that point. Also long ago the veil was made into a form of punishment, if a witch or wizard did something that deserved death they would be sent through the veil without a tether and it would be left up to fate whether they would survive or not, however, because the chance of survival was literally one in infinity a jaunt through the veil became synonymous with death." Dumbledore smiled benignly at Kingsley as he waited for him to put all the pieces together.
It didn't take long. "Port Keys! Port keys use the veil to transport people. But even so, Harry had no key, no tether, wouldn't it be just the same for him: an infinitely small chance of survival."
"Ah, but you forget that something which guided him through the Department of Mysteries and to the veil, that something that unless I am very much mistaken tethers him not only to earth but to a very specific fate. I believe he has been sent through the portal to the best place for him to accomplish his destiny, nothing less."
Kingsley furrowed his brow, he knew from the twinkling smile that Dumbledore was giving him that he expected Kingsley to be able to piece together the various tidbits and clues into an answer. "The Prophesy. The Prophesy is guiding him and protecting him."
Dumbledore smiled that smile that made Kingsley want to blush again. "Yes, the Prophesy. Young Harry is what we call a nexus of magic, an object or, in this case, a person about whom a great deal of conflicting magics are brought together. He had the protection of his mother's which made it impossible for Voldemort to harm him, and the protection of the Prophesy that made it impossible for anyone else to kill him. Add to that the negative dark magics from Voldemort's attempted murder upon him and all he has suffered through since, then finally the effect of a… failed dementor's Kiss, and many untested and unstable experimental potions within his system. Wherever young Harry is now I do believe we can expect to see him again before this all ends."
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
"So who is he?" Patrick Young asked the nurse standing beside him. Both were standing at the one way window that showed the main room of the Minnesotan State Psychiatric Hospital, and both were gazing at the huddled figure of a frail old man in a wheelchair near the far window.
"We really have no idea. They were going to give him a bed in some corner as they believed he was completely catatonic at first, but he has shown some signs of awareness, so there is hope that he may wake up from whatever was done to him." Mandy Wright said glancing away from the huddled figure to gauge the reaction of Dr. Young.
"Done to him?" Doctor Young asked half curious, half dreading the answer.
"Well we're not certain what was done or why exactly, but when they found him his system was so filled with drugs that they had to pump his stomach and give him several transfusions of clean blood to save his life."
"So he was a druggy and overdosed finally." Patrick couldn't help but feel a little bit of contempt for someone who would do so much damage to their own body.
"The doctors at the hospital don't think so." At the questioning and prodding look from the doctor she continued, "They say that his system was so flooded with so many different drugs that they originally thought it was a suicide attempt, but then they had his blood and stomach contents analyzed and they say they only have names for about half the chemicals they were able to isolate. That and they think they missed a number of the chemicals." She paused and gave the doctor a look that clearly said 'I don't know either' before continuing. "And they say that he can't be more than 18 years old. The drugs had a rather deleterious effect on his body, even after they removed as much as they could; in the time he has been here his physical appearance has aged from mid forties to this, what physically looks like an eighty or ninety year old man."
"Goodness, really? How long has he been here that you've been able to observe such a change?" Dr. Young tried to appear only a little surprised and interested, instead of disturbed and a little fearful.
"He's been here a little over a month. They called you in because yesterday he thanked the orderly when he was given his meds. We think he may respond to the counseling that you might give him."
Dr. gave her a sidelong look as he continued to watch the seemingly old man. "Right, well show him into my office when he's ready."
OOO
"Hello again, my name is doctor Young. Can you tell me your name?" Dr. Young spoke in that patented patronizing tone people used when speaking to the incredibly slow, in this case he spoke this way to cover his discomfort. He was still uncomfortable around the man even after several sessions where he had spoken at him for hours before giving it up as a bad job. He no longer expected any sort of answer, as he had the first time, instead the man always just sat and stared with dead eyes that made Patrick want to take a shower. Despite the fact that it was illogical and baseless he still felt on edge.
"We had no names." Dr. Young nearly fell out of his seat, this being the first time he had gotten any response at all. He was surprised by both the smooth tones that didn't at all hint at the past months of silence, and the directness of the response. Before Dr. Young had managed to collect himself from the surprise of the response the man's gaze returned from where it had wandered to pin him to his seat. "We had ranks though. I was Greatest." Patrick was stumped by this and the clear sound of the capital letter in the title. He didn't know any ranking of any sort that was merely Greatest; people loved words and titles too much to make it that simple. "Greatest taken. Greatest held." His eyes had taken on a light that froze him to his seat and made him dearly wish for escape of any sort. "I was Fear, and among Fears I was Greatest."
The old man slumped in his seat resuming the listless position he had shown in all the other counseling sessions and the light in his eyes that had frozen Dr. Young to his seat was suddenly gone. Patrick hadn't even been aware of the old man straightening up and taking on an air of command and power, only noticing it now as it left him.
"I think that is all that we'll do today." Dr. Young glanced at the door, behind the man who showed no sign of having heard him or any attempt to respond, and couldn't help but wonder for an instant if he could make it in time; before what, he knew not.
OOO
"I just don't think it is advisable for me to be seeing him again. I will happily hand off all my notes to any other doctor you want to see him, but I won't be seeing that man again." Dr. Young was flushed and flustered and trying to hide his embarrassment at the fact that he was, frankly, terrified of his patient. Who fittingly enough called himself the Greatest Fear.
"Doctor Young, whatever happened, I'm sure we can find a way to work around it, you have only seen him four times now and you said he never said anything before today. What could possibly put you off this so soon?"
Patrick hesitated a moment, trying to decide if it was worth it to admit he was afraid of him if it would end the conversation here.
"I don't know who he was or what he did, but from those few sessions I have gotten enough hints that I don't ever want to answer those two questions…" He paused for a moment, trying to impress his meaning upon the nurse. "Or be there when they are answered." When it still appeared she didn't understand he elaborated, "That man terrifies me, when he looks at me I feel like – like the happiness is being forced from me. Like all I will ever know is a paralyzing terror. I freely admit that that man makes me want my mother like nothing else ever has." And with that he left the hospital for his offices in town, hoping desperately that they wouldn't call him back until that man had moved on.
