The main foyer of Edgware Community Hospital was a large, warm room lined with squishy armchairs low to the ground. Harry passed a young family who'd dragged three of the seats around so that they could sit in a little group, around their 14- or 15-year-old son, who was confined to a wheelchair. They were laughing, absorbed in the little world they had created for themselves - the boy shot Harry a brilliant smile, which Harry suspected was an involuntary spasm, but he returned it. The mother nodded to him. Harry was an outsider looking in, into the reality of a supportive family, a group of people who cared for one another.

He had, Harry thought to himself, had one of those (a group of people who cared for one another), just last week.

Harry passed through emergency and out into the front carpark of the hospital, which was currently populated with a handful of ambulances not currently in use and various cars of all shapes and sizes. It was approaching the eveningtime. Birds twittered from branch to branch, not bothered by the hustle and bustle of a busy hospital carpark. Harry saw a small, tawny cat dart across the street. There, on the corner, was a motorbike, so enormous that Harry instinctively thought of Hagrid astride it, and of their escape from Privet Drive …

Just as he was deciding that Clougherty must have been mistaken about someone waiting for him, Harry bent down to pick up the little suitcase by its handle (no idea where he was going - what would happen now - who he would turn to), and -

"There you are, Mr Potter!"

Harry stopped short, and spun, alarmed. It seemed so obvious, the moment that he saw her: a woman in dark, emerald clothes, her salt-and-pepper tied up in a characteristically tight bun …. he had seen her cross the street, just a second ago. Harry felt some flood of relief right in the bottom of his stomach: "Professor McGonagall." Even seeing her made Harry feel better, like coming home - it gushed up inside of him, affection for his head of house at Hogwarts making him feel rather empty-handed, like he ought to have bought her flowers for visiting him in hospital.

Professor McGonagall was looking at him rather strangely. "Well - yes," she said, awkwardly. She was probably fairly taken aback by the thrill of recognition that had shot through him, because - Harry realised, belatedly - she was likely just as familiar with him as Ron and Hermione had been. All Harry was, to this Professor McGonagall, was a young boy who'd never gone to Hogwarts (if it was real at all), and never entered under her care in Gryffindor, and never done anything extraordinary besides allowing his parents to be murdered by the most powerful dark wizard of the age. She reached out to catch at Harry's shoulder, anyway, as though she could check him over just by holding him - she beat at some imaginary dust on his collar. "Oh, look at you," she tutted, "You've grown, Potter. You look just like -"

"My father," Harry agreed, readily, and felt as though he might cry with the knowledge that Professor McGonagall was still Professor McGonagall, and at least some version of her was real - "I know. I look just like my dad - except my eyes. I've got my mother's eyes."

"Yes," she agreed. As surprised as McGonagall sounded, she didn't seem to want to pursue it. Not here, at least. She stooped to collect Harry's suitcase, herself (Harry felt a pang of guilt - he should have been carrying it - but she had beaten him to it) and seized his elbow, looking around the sunny street like she heavily suspected each of the six, large bushes which formed the hedge in Edgware's garden. "I suppose - if you've been briefed …" she didn't seem to think this very likely, but Professor McGonagall had no real explanation for Harry's knowledge outside of that. "Of course, we agreed we would wait. Mundungus..." She continued muttering to herself, pulling Harry around the corner into a disused little alleyway behind the hospital.

"Professor, where are we going?" Harry tried, when she did not stop there - only pulled him further and further into the alley, away from the view of the street. "Professor!"

"It's not safe for you here, Potter! He Who Must Not Be Named has spies everywhere, these days - we couldn't Fidelius charm a hospital -"

"Voldemort?" Harry asked, dumbly. "You can't mean Voldemort's still al- ?"

The instant that he said it, Harry knew that this had been a mistake. The air cracked like gunfire - all around them the dark little alleyway exploded with figures caped in black - there was no cover to be had, not in a lengthwise corridor like this one: Harry's hand instinctively grabbed for a wand he did not own. Unlike the Snatchers in the woods, these men and women did not hesitate - with no wand to counter the spell Harry seized Professor McGonagall by the arm and pulled her down, with him, ducking out of the way of the several jets of red light that sailed overhead. There was a grunt - at least one spell had hit one of the Snatchers -

From the corner of his eye, he saw Professor McGonagall produce her own wand from her sleeve. The Snatchers were aiming lower, now; Harry looked up to find himself on the other end of a wand and it was probably sheer surprise that saved him, because the man there - Scabior, he realised, he recognised the Death Eater: Scabior - had frozen with utter surprise to find Harry Potter on the other end of his wand. Then Scabior's face twisted into a horrible smile, one which twisted something right in the pit of Harry's stomach:

"Avada -"

"Potter, with me!"

Harry felt Professor McGonagall grab onto his arm. On sheer instinct, he closed his eyes and turned toward her (spun), in time with McGonagall's motion, and suddenly he was moving - they were Apparating - Harry couldn't breathe, felt as though he was being pushed through a very tight, very narrow pipe - he was going to be sick …. something was wrong, too. He could feel it even before they landed, because McGonagall was fighting with someone, her grip on his arm kept loosening to a point where he had to grab a hold of her and fight to keep a hold …

They landed with a deafening crack and Professor McGonagall fell away from him. Before anything else Harry turned to face her and saw, with horror, that the Apparation had not gone well: she had splinched herself. His head of house was lying on the ground, coughing and spluttering and without the lower half of her right leg, which remained standing there, severed at the joint. It looked strangely comical, for a second, before it toppled beside her and McGonagall began to search for her wand, to repair the damage.

Beside her stood a man - one of the Snatchers Harry didn't recognise - who had evidently decided that they wouldn't get away, this time. He was pointing his wand squarely at Harry's chest. He stepped right over Professor McGonagall (pausing only to call her a name Harry did not think bore repeating) as if to add insult to the injury - Harry took one step back, hands going straight to the wall behind him, searching for something to grab a hold of.

"Potter," the Snatcher said, advancing on him. He was at least a foot taller than Harry, two times as broad and thrice as stupid: Harry thought vividly of a younger version of his cousin, Dudley Dursley. "I've got Potter!"

This was Hogwarts, Harry realised, with a strange little thrill, and the wall behind him wasn't a wall at all: it was a bookshelf. Now that he looked around he could see the portraits of the several different Headmasters and Headmistresses of Hogwarts, many of them snoozing through these events (though several others were zooming around each painting, rushing to wake one another for the show) - his hands grabbed a hold of something silvery and solid, a small metal instrument which he held behind his back, at the ready, waiting for the man to get closer …

"I'm going to kill you," the Snatcher informed Harry, closing in now, his wand almost close enough to make a grab for - Harry did not know if he knew any spells but he knew at least that he had a better shot at surviving if he could somehow get it - the wand - out of this man's hands -

"That won't be necessary, Nicholas," said a more familiar voice, from somewhere behind the Snatcher. Harry actually dropped the metal instrument he was holding, and it clattered to the ground somewhere at his feet, a product of his sheer surprise.

There, with his long, silvery beard and half-moon spectacles, and a vaguely pleasant smile, fingers folded casually over one another, stood Professor Albus Dumbledore.

"Dumbledore," Professor McGonagall gasped, urgently. She was grasping at the ground, searching for her wand, but her frenzy seemed to calm somewhat when she found Dumbledore. When the Snatcher - Nicholas - turned (he had paled so quickly Harry felt concerned he might faint), Harry ducked under the man's arm to help Professor McGonagall up, snatching her wand up from underneath the ridge of the bookcase as he went. McGonagall seized her wand from Harry's hand and with a wave reattached the limb, thought it looked like she'd done a poor job of it - Harry was sure she'd have to visit Madam Pomfrey.

"You!" Nicholas spat, at Dumbledore.

"Me," Dumbledore repeated, pleasantly.

"Professor Dumbledore," Harry said, with McGonagall's arms still wrapped around his shoulders - she was pulling away, now, batting at Harry's hands ("I am perfectly capable, thank you, Mr Potter,"). His hands hovered absently by her waist, to ensure she stayed upright. "What's going on?"

"It seems Professor McGonagall is in need of the Hospital Wing of our school, Harry. Would you be so kind as to escort her?" Dumbledore suggested it kindly, peering at Harry down his long, crooked nose.

"He knows me, Albus. I thought it was Mundungus -" McGonagall was saying, urgently, at Harry's side. Dumbledore held up a hand, and she fell silent.

"I must attend to our guest, Minerva. I would like Madam Pomfrey to examine the both of you." This seemed to be some kind of code. Harry felt a twinge of annoyance at being cut out of the conversation, like he couldn't hear what was being said - Professor Dumbledore wanted Madam Pomfrey to examine him. Why? Was there some medical thing that could have happened - would she be able to tell him why he had spent the last eight years completely unfamiliar with the Wizarding world, yet he had managed to imagine it so vividly he knew the details right down to names, and personalities? History - spells - even the layout of Dumbledore's office?

"Professor," Harry pressed -

"Minerva will be kind enough to show you the way, Harry. We can discuss this further once we've all slept." It was so final that Harry felt unable to argue. He swore to himself that this wasn't good enough - he would make sure Dumbledore answered his question, even if he wouldn't do it now. Harry had spent too many years without answers … but he could go without for a night.

Professor McGonagall seemed to have reached the same conclusion - she pulled Harry just enough to stir him: "It's this way, Potter."

"I know," he agreed, absently, and reached around her to open the door. Hogwarts' layout was identical, too: Harry walked the familiar halls, unsurprised by the twists and turns. He even helped McGonagall to skip the trick step at the bottom of the staircase he knew liked to occasionally disappear its final step. When they reached the Hospital Wing, Madam Pomfrey at once hurried Professor McGonagall into a bed and left Harry (not unkindly) with instructions to get himself changed and set himself up somewhere - she'd have to treat McGonagall first. Harry had had enough experience in the Hospital Wing to find a set of pajamas and draw his curtains to get changed. It felt very odd, standing in Hogwarts' Hospital Wing again - strange, to be getting changed like this with the knowledge that there was nobody in the whole Wizarding World who knew who he was, and even Ron and Hermione wouldn't be visiting. Maybe he would ring Hermione again, once he was out of Hogwarts … maybe they could start again …

Suddenly, with a desperate lurch in his stomach, Harry felt lonely - as lonely as he had ever felt. Even lonelier than he had been when he'd lived with the Dursleys and had not known of magic, or Hogwarts, or the Wizarding World. At least then, he hadn't lost anybody. He missed being able to talk to his friends. He was finding it hard to even imagine what they would say - Ron would tell him, "Well, they can't all have forgotten you, can they?", and he could just imagine the books and books Hermione would recommend, the research she'd promise to do … research which ultimately would have made Harry feel better, even if it didn't produce an answer. He pulled the curtains open again and crawled into his bed.

What was real? What wasn't? He didn't even know if his version of reality did have grounding: there seemed to be the same sort of people around, but in his reality Dumbledore was dead. Who else was here? Was Sirius alive - was Dobby? Hedwig, somewhere, on someone else's shoulder, nipping their fingers?

That night, Harry lay tossing and turning between his sheets, unable to get to sleep. No matter how hard he tried to settle it, his mind kept wandering back to something that Dumbledore - or at least the Dumbledore Harry remembered - had said to him, not even six months ago, now:

Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?