Disclaimer:I do not own Harry Potter or the song 'Her Name is Alice' by Shinedown.
This Harry came about as a 'what would happen if Snape accidentally destroyed a key pillar of Harry's mind when trying to teach said student Occlumancy, leaving Harry in roughly the same state of mind as the Longbottoms', but eventually evolved into a 'disassociated and mentally fractured Harry who adopts something-something' with open-ended references to manipulative!Dumbledore and a mildly Loony! and Stuff-it!Harry.
Honestly, the plot is so open-ended that you can make pretty much anything you want of it and draw your own conclusions.
If I had a world of my own
Everything would be nonsense.
Nothing would be what it is
Because everything would be what it isn't.
The last thing It remembered was trying to resist a dark figure's angry mind probe. Then pain...
Broken stained glass shards floated above a backdrop of storm clouds, many midnight blue and deep violet while other shards were fire crimson, oily green and void black.
The Nimbus was only able to identify the blue and violet shards 'Me/Mine' and the rest as 'Not Me/Not Mine'.
A small blue shard floated through the Nimbus above the turbulent river of clouds, giving the Nimbus a desire to sort through the shards into groups of 'Mine' and 'Not Mine'.
Sometimes the desire would go away and the Nimbus would stop, drifting in apathy for a time, before another shard would float through It, giving renewed purpose.
I invite you to a world where there is no such thing as time
And every creature lends themselves to change your state of mind
And the girl that chased the rabbit, drank the wine and took the pill
Has locked herself in limbo to see how it truly feels
To stand outside your virtue
No one cane ever hurt you
Or so they say
When the Nimbus finally managed to sort the 'Mine' shards from the 'Not-Mine' shards, It noticed that there were almost as many of the fire crimson shards as there were deep violet ones.
At some point, a frame of some kind floated out of the clouds and hovered between the two groups, the bottom lined in bright blue pieces that hadn't torn from the edges.
When next a shard floated into the Nimbus, It began to search out the small number of bright blue pieces and fit them into the frame.
It took forever and an eternity before there were no blue and purple shards left, and there were big gaping holes in the window where the 'Not-Mine' shards went.
Tired and finally finished, the Nimbus began sorting the 'Not-Mine' shards and putting them into bags that appeared to keep them together and away from Its Window of Self.
The Nimbus coiled around the Window tiredly and Became.
Her name is Alice (Alice)
She crawls into the window
Through shapes and shadows
Alice (Alice)
And even though she's dreaming, she knows
(space)
When Harry Potter woke, the world was suddenly, inexplicably, clear.
It was like going through life with rose-tinted glasses, only to take them off and substitute them with blue-tinted glasses; a whole new perspective on the same thing.
He was in a hospital bed in a sparse grey stone room that was just a bit chilly, IV bags attached to his wrists above the loose straps that held him down.
With a little wiggling and a slight graze on his thumb, Harry got his left hand loose and began to gently unstrap himself enough to free his other hand and remove the painful needles.
A dim part of the wizard wondered why he could move so easily, since he knew he'd been in his mind for a very long time. His muscles and such should have atrophied, but hadn't.
His arms and legs were still muscled like they'd been before...just Before. He was very pale, though.
His hair was longer too. It would probably be to mid-back soaking wet, but the thick black mass retained its chaotic, gravity-defying nature even at length, rising in long smoky-black, absurdly fluffy licks around his shoulders.
He was naked under the blankets, so when he hesitantly stood from the bed, he took off the sheet, folded it in half and wrapped it around his waist, pulling the white blanket over his shoulders for warmth.
A pleased smile crossed the wizard's face when the door opened by itself into an empty corridor.
On a whim, he went left.
A time later, he found himself in front of a familiar picture of a wizard trying to teach trolls ballet.
Harry smiled.
Sometimes the curiosity can kill the soul but leave the pain
And every ounce of innocence is left inside her brain
And through the looking glass we see she's painfully returned
But now off with her head I fear is everyone's concern
You see there's no real ending
It's only the beginning
Come out and play
(space)
Harry spent a few hours in the Room of Hidden and Lost Things, as he whimsically called it, curled up on a squishy couch and reading the newspapers and such, catching up on what was going on in the outside world.
According to the Daily Prophet, Harry had disappeared from Hogwarts while travelling between his 'Remedial Potions' lessons and the Gryffindor Dormitory. A full investigation ensued, resulting in the discovery of Umbridge's blood quills, a surprising number of Dark Items, more than two dozen illegal potions and the firing of several teachers for misconduct (who knew Professor Sinistra was sleeping with so many seventh years? Of both genders?). Dumbledore barely held onto his position as headmaster and Snape had quit before the investigation even started.
Harry knew Snape had shattered his mind. He was pretty sure it had been an accident considering he owed James, and thus Harry, a life debt. Likely it was just dumb luck that the man hit a key fault line in Harry's mind.
That didn't mean the green-eyed monster -ahem- wizard, would forgive him. Ever.
Harry's mind had shattered like red-hot glass under cold water when he was fifteen. The newest newspaper in the Room said he was now nineteen.
He would not forgive certain parties for stealing four years of his life.
Side Note; Voldemort upped his plans and outed himself without being completely ready to wage war again. Fudge got a vote of no confidence and Amelia Bones became Minister.
The ministry emptied of all bearing the Dark Mark and Azkaban got noticeably full.
With a wicked little smirk, Harry cheerfully stored everything from books to potions, broken furniture to clothing, jewellery to weapons, into a little mokeskin bag he found.
And, on the upside, he was now had actual clothing to wear.
The late teen cheerfully skipped out of Hogwarts and into the bright, shiny, danger-infested world.
Her name is Alice (Alice)
She crawls into the window
Through shapes and shadows
Alice (Alice)
And even though she's dreaming
She's unlocked the meaning for you
This kingdom good riddance
Her freedom and innocence
Has brought this whole thing down
(space)
A few weeks later Harry, now introducing himself as Harley Quinn (and, yes, he was aware that the Marvel Harley Quinn (or Harleen Quinzel) was a chick), wandered along the London Harbour, cheerfully balancing on the edge of the wharf, humming a random ditty.
It had been easy to scrounge up enough money from the mokeskin bag to get a ride to Diagon Alley on the Knight Bus. Easier still to wander up to a goblin at Gringotts and ask for a Vault Test. No one could touch his Vaults until he reappeared after he went missing because his account still listed him as alive.
He was informed that several parties had tried.
Many of the clothes he'd taken from the Room of Hidden and Lost Things were old, in some cases very, very old, and so he'd anonymously donated the more muggle-like dresses and unwearable clothes to a small museum in London.
Now his favourite clothes consisted of a pair of ancient worn brown leather knickerbockers with flannel inlay, a pair of big black boots that were probably from the 1980s, a slightly oversized, pale purple button up flannelette shirt and a big dark coat that looked and smelled remarkably like a smaller version of Hagrid's old coat.
Harry looked like a tramp and he had no problem with that.
He knew the holes left in his Window of Self left him a little...unhinged.
He thinks that he has never been so happy and free.
Her name is Alice(Alice)
She crawls into the window
Through shapes and shadows
Alice (Alice)
And even though she's dreaming
She's unlocked the meaning
(space)
The green-eyed young man is attractive with his shaggy dark hair and whimsical smile to the people he passes in the street.
The green-eyed monster is terrifying with his swaying movements and teeth-baring grin to the Death Eaters who find him one cold afternoon.
Red knights, White knights
Marching to the fight.
Drink me, sing me
Fill me to sink me
After six months wandering Britain from top to bottom, Harry always finds himself in London along the harbour.
He had seen Them drinking the blood of a homeless man one morning in the dawn light, seen the regret on Their identical faces as They cut his throat and rolled his body into the water, so when Harry finds himself with five unconscious Death Eaters, he drags them into a warehouse, hangs them up by their ankles and slits their throats, letting the blood fall into a funnel and into the large ten gallon bottles from the Room.
He left the bottles outside the door to the lair They made in the basement of a nearby warehouse. He also left a book simply titled 'Dhampir'.
The bottles are gone the next morning, the smell of blood having drawn their attention.
Red knights, White knights
Marching to the fight.
Drink me, sing me
Fill me to sink me
She's unlocked the meaning for you
(space)
For three years, Harry on and off dropped by to leave bottles of Death Eater blood for Them.
He was balancing along the edge of a wharf when They eventually found him, having caught his scent from across the river and winged it as bats.
When he saw Them standing at the riverbank, his first thought was that They were younger than he had though They were.
'They' were twin boys with pale, beautiful faces and inky black hair and eyes, smaller and daintier than himself, like pretty painted dolls, and appeared to be only around fifteen or so. The bloodlust had likely started with the onset of puberty and had probably driven one or both of them to kill their caretaker as mortal mothers seldom survived childbirth.
Dhampirs were the offspring of a vampire father and a mortal mother and were usually hunted to the ground by full-blooded vampires and wizards both. If the Ministry of Magic ever became aware of them, they would be executed out of hand like a rabid dog.
See, dhampirs had all of the strengths and only the mildest of weaknesses of vampires. They could shapeshift, use magic, had supernatural speed, strength and senses and were strongly sensitive to the unseen dimensional layers that overlapped this one. However, they became uncomfortable after long periods of time in the sun and had to rest below ground, had mild allergies to silver, garlic and some other herbs and holy items agitated them, though were unlikely to harm or drive them away like true vampires.
They were, unfortunately, also very noticeable, making it easier for certain parties to kill them before they became powerful enough to be a threat. The last known adult dhampir spent five hundred years running around the globe, killing vampires, dark creatures and the odd wizard or witch who pissed him off, before dropping off the face of the planet around the 1890s.
Harry wandered towards the pair, still smiling his vacant, whimsical smile.
In contrariwise
What it I
It wouldn't be
And what it wouldn't be
It would.
You see?
Not really sure how this one came about and it was mildly morbid.
Tell me what you think.