Albus looked around him in muted wonder. He also noticed that he was dressed differently, his robes disappeared with assembles more suited to his grandfather's time; long tailcoat with top-hat and a cane to finish the Victorian assemble. He looked at the woman for though she was as small as a young teenage girl she was no doubt a woman, Alice, before him and asked, "Where is Harry and most importantly where is here? I have been within many minds before in my life to either help or discover secrets…" He trailed off, realising that he had explained why he was invading other minds. It seemed wherever here was, he was compelled to speak nothing but the truth.

Alice gave him her trademark smirk, "It is the law of Wonderland that all who came must speak nothing but the truth. You may twist facts with word plays or speaking in riddles, but you can never ever tell a lie,"

Albus stared at her, "Wonderland?" His mind clicked; her name, her clothing assembles, the terrifying grinning cat and the name of the place; Wonderland… He asked, "Like Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass?"

He immediately found himself eyes to knife point as Alice hissed, "That man was nothing but a perverted customer of the Mangled Mermaid. Speak nothing of him for he knows nothing of my Wonderland," She then turned away, her knife suspiciously missing as if it had dissolved into thin air, "My story was once famous in London; the tragic Alice Liddell who witnessed the burning of her whole family and lost her mind. Alice and her Wonderland, forever trapped in a mystery that expressed itself into a nightmare of endless riddles,"

She gave a bitter laugh, "Oh, they don't know half the truth of it; that mental asylum, the detestable tests and all that madness. I may be mad but at least I harm no one…or at least no one who meant me no harm," She looked at him over her shoulder, "Everyone's a little mad, even you,"

Albus can't help but accept her reasoning for he has seen the world at its maddest and survived it, but not without a few 'souvenir' of his own. You can't come out unscathed once you taste that sort of madness that drove the insane to sane and the sane to insanity. Alice snorted, "Carroll only heard of me and decided to write a pale imitation of my innocent childhood of Wonderland. But he left aside that when Alice grow up, so does Wonderland…and it wasn't all so innocent anymore,"

Albus nodded, "But why are you in little Harry's mind?"

Alice sneered, "What do you think magic was made of? Imagination and insanity," She spat the word magic and turned from him to assume her journey, "I was the first to gain what magic there was within my family. My father was a practical mind but no one can deny that my mind…it is world of its own. The force of imagination can come alive with just the right sort of will and stubbornness…and am I stubborn,"

She shivered, "It was the kind of magic that both create and destroy. My Wonderland is true to me and it was a mere dream to others. I died and then Lily came to this world. She has my eyes, you see?" She looked at him and true to her word, there was that familiar spark of wonder in her eyes that Lily often had whenever she came to brilliant breakthrough. Albus shivered as it was both brilliant and murky.

Alice smirked, "Yes, she has my eyes and my might. My Wonderland became more than a dream. It became the sort of magic that others vied for but little has any experience in wielding. What you do was nothing to what I can do. But little Lily is weak, her mind could not accept the shades of grey, everything must be white or black," She sighed, "Poor Severus…if only she could see that he's the embodiment of shades of greys," Her eyes snapped with murderous glint, "But she just had to have James Potter, the flirt,"

Albus kept silent, knowing wordlessly that though he might contest her judgement, this was a woman who has might enough to absorb him into her world. It was the kind of mind magic that even Voldemort would long for. He knew then what happened in Wonderland can happen in the real world and should he die here…Albus shuddered at the thought.

There was no doubt about it, for all others Lily Evans Potter was the saint of Hogwarts and James Potter was the redeemable trickster. But they too have flaws. Albus had tried to change Lily's mind about the Dursley, that there were people in the magical world that can both protect and hide Harry until his time to return to the magical world. But she had wanted to protect Petunia, saying that she has trust on her sister. Albus had checked up on the Dursley before to place protective charm on them as he had done to so many other Muggles for his Muggleborn compatriots or students. And when Minerva McGonagall complained about the family, he agreed wholeheartedly but Lily, with her brilliant mind and her pride for knowledge, made him take on an Unbreakable Vow to make sure Harry remain with Petunia at any cost.

Lily Evans Potter was indeed brilliant…but a little blind. Can't she see the silent abuse that her sister suffered through day by day? Unless Petunia split from Vernon, Albus feared for Harry's wellbeing. He then tried to give the woman a way out but she has never opened his letters with suggestions for a better life, instead burning them without opening the letters. She then replied with a disturbingly disappointing answer. Albus had feared then that she loved her husband too much that she ignored the abuse that she suffered through.

Well, he was wrong for it was fear and love for her son that stilled her hand.

And James Potter…the man indeed a loyal friend and steadfast fighter for the Light. But he was ignorant in the way of the world. He was filled with so much pride and his doubtless loyalty of the wrong friend, a friend that Albus had warned them to keep aside in their protection program, led him and his family to ruin. Didn't they know that it was often the most unsuspecting person that proved to be the most dangerous?

Obviously James did not think this. True Remus Lupin's a werewolf, but the man was more trustworthy than Peter Pettigrew. Sirius Black has the right idea but he suggested the wrong person. All of them blindsided by both pride and their belief that they have learned all that they should in Hogwarts. Albus also suspected that his warning about the friend that they should be wary off was taken the wrong way. He had wanted to warn without alienating since he has no proof but suspicion and knowing James and Sirius' loyalty, he can't point fingers less they took it the wrong way. Poor Remus was alienated by his friends just because he was a werewolf in the wrong time.

Alice skipped, looking at the giant snails moving lazily beneath them as she stopped before a drop, "But little Harry…I cursed that Vernon every single time he placed a hand on Harry,"

Albus shuddered from the memory he gleamed over from Dudley. The sounds alone were enough to drive a grown man to tears and frustration. Alice continued, "I can't help at first because I have no rule over the living but Harry, oh little Harry reached me through dreams. I gave him beautiful dreams, of when Wonderland was innocent and truly a heaven to be in,"

"I feed him in dream and he wasn't as suffering from hunger in reality for his mind insisted that the body is full. But slowly what was once a dream he brought it into his world. I was delighted to know that he has food in the real world though it came from a dream. And then… I realised that he has a strong grasp of my magic, that he can dreams to reality and make it stay. I sought to teach him when he's much older but then…that monster shatters everything!" She snarled. Strange avian took flight from her growl.

She clawed at her head, "He raped my boy! Raped him he did! Oh, if there was anything I can't accept it is rapist! They are the worse scums in the world! My world shattered, my Wonderland ruined because of the man who raped my sister! He was supposed to be respected figure in society, a doctor who heals, not ruin!" She growled, her face turned snow white pale her sclera darkened to black, her pupils dilated and turned crimson as her whole appearance shifted, bloody tears dripping off her face, "Dr Angus Bumby, a man respected by the elites of London. A man with two faces….just like that Vernon Dursley," She spat the name of Harry's tormentor.

She took a deep breath and her appearance shifted back to how he first saw her and Albus let out a quiet sigh of relief; her other appearance was short of traumatising and Albus has seen his own share of monsters that could turn a mind inside out. She then waved her hand and beautiful snow globe appears before them, floating free of suspension. Within was a beautiful little boy with flowing black hair and pale skin in perhaps a boy rendition of Alice's dress; thigh high striped stockings and similar black buckled boots, black short shorts, deep blue blouse that was the same shade as Alice with a white vest spattered with blood. Like Alice, he too wear a necklace around his neck with the symbol of Omega; the End.

Alice turn to him, "He will never be the same, not once his innocence stolen from him. Like me, his naïve Wonderland shattered by that pig's actions. No child should have to go through what I did and yet, it seemed that my line was fated to endure madness. Should he have been anyone else, Harry would have broken like his cousin a long time ago," Her eyes shed rivulets of tears as she turned to Albus, "I shall return him to your world but you must not condemn or estrange him for what he has chosen to become. It has become him and though I would like to remain passive, I could not for he has become me in all but gender,"

Albus stared at her, wondering how will the Magical World perceive their child Saviour who was as jaded as the woman before him. But looking at her, broken and battered as she was, to contain such wonder, both and beauty and gore, Albus realised that perhaps this was what the Magical World needs; a warrior who can still contain such beauty within them yet strong enough to force through whatever horror awaits his destiny. He bowed to Alice, "Please, help us guide him. They will claim him dark and insane, perhaps persecute him and even with all my influence, I am but a man against a world of prejudice. Much that I do held but little impact in a world ruled by laws of wealth, blood and lineage,"

Alice smiled a real smile that was thought lost with her family's death, "Have no fear, there's more to madness than what you think,"