Mentions of abuse.
The journey into the Mad Hatter's Domain was disappointingly uneventful and as they walked, Alice let her mind wander. Back to the last time she'd ventured into Wonderland. When she'd rescued her own sanity.
It had been more than a year since she'd escaped Rutledge Asylum. They hadn't had a reason to keep her anymore. Her mental health had improved to the point where they were better off letting her leave, and allowing some other poor mad soul to take her place. Dr. Bumby, however, had impressed upon her the importance of keeping in touch with him. And when the hallucinations started, and the fragments of her broken memories jostled at the edges of her mind, she ended up in weekly appointments in his office, trying desperately to...to do what, really? Alice wondered. To remember, to forget...she wanted to forget, and Dr. Bumby told her to forget it all. Forget about Lizzie, forget the fire, forget Dinah. But how could she, when it threatened to drive her mad once more? She'd lived and they'd died. She'd watched the house burn. Priss had told her that. That she'd stood there, barefoot in the snow, clutching her rabbit and watching the house burn. Tears streaming down her face then, but she was dry-eyed later. She couldn't cry. Dry-eyed as her world shattered and burned around her. And thus began the instability of Wonderland.
But it was over, wasn't it? The Heart of Darkness had crumbled. The Red Queen defeated. Queensland lay in ruins (or did it?). Rutledge lay behind her. Nightmares of that place still tumbled through Alice's brain. The orderlies. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, she'd privately dubbed them. Bastards, the both of them. They'd force-fed her when her hallucinations proved too strong, and she couldn't even look at a meal tray anymore. Their thick, stubby fingers had pried her mouth open, not caring if they left bruises or made the corners of her mouth crack open and bleed. Lewd comments were rampant, although she'd still been quite young, about what a pretty mouth she had, what a shame they couldn't fill it with something else. With a shudder of disgust, Alice could still remember the larger twin grabbing his crotch with a meaty hand and gesturing at her with it. She'd closed her eyes so tightly, she'd felt like the capillaries might burst. And wouldn't that have been a treat, seeing everything through a misty red haze of blood? She'd paid them back, though. A spoon through one's cheek. It had been quite exhilarating, hearing his hoarse screams before she turned the instrument upon herself.
Even worse, however, was Nurse Cratchett, that miserable bitch. Alice longed to see her dead. Perhaps the senseless cruelties she'd inflicted upon Alice and the other inmates could come back upon her three-fold? Discipline your mind, Alice, discipline your mind, the crude woman had always spouted as she set leeches on Alice's bone-thin frame, or sent her up for another electro-shock treatment. Then there were the little "games" she played when Alice was alone once more in her room. Pick the right choice, Alice, pick the treat, or you'll get a trick. Only she always picked the trick. Always petty, always vicious. Prodding her thighs this way and that. The prick of a needle sliding into her veins, the burn that followed. The thick, cruel hands thudding against her intimate parts, "examining" her. Orderlies leering and urging Nurse Cratchett on in low, choked whispers while Alice lay there and tried desperately to fall back into Wonderland. Many times, she almost succeeded until there was yet another rough prickle of pain, something else always that pulled her away from her longed-for refuge.
Of course, she discovered that Wonderland was not the escape she'd dreamed of, but even in that, it was better. At least in Wonderland, Dr. Wilson was not there to drone on and on at her, to take away her pencils, to take away her rabbit. Bastard. She supposed he'd meant well. At least he did not perpetuate monstrosities for the sheer joy of doing so.
Alice wondered where her rabbit was now. She'd...lost him. Somewhere along the way. Although she was sure she'd had him when she'd left Rutledge...hadn't she?
I'm late, I'm late, I'm terribly late! But of course, the White Rabbit was nowhere to be seen anymore. She'd seen him the last therapy session with Dr. Bumby. Having tea with him, but then it all went...horribly wrong. Perhaps that should have been a sign. Wonderland was corrupted. And now she must set it right. But she'd never had a companion before. Particularly not one so young. So...broken. Yes. He was broken in different ways, but Harry Potter was broken, as well. He'd told her a bit about his former family. The way they'd pushed him round, the way they'd abandoned him when he had one of his "fits." And what were his fits, anyway? Were they similar to her bouts of catatonia in Rutledge? Did Harry have his own version of Wonderland?
Was that how he could come along with her, on this journey into madness?
Beside her, Harry was lost in his own thoughts. He'd never been out of London before, not that he could remember. Oh, sure, his parents had lived elsewhere, but he couldn't remember it. The only thing he remembered before the train accident was a very hazy fragment of a smiling redheaded woman leaning over him. He supposed this was his mum, but he'd never seen a photograph of her. The Dursleys had never told him what his parents looked like. Only their names. James and Lily Potter. They were strong names. Good names. Uncle Vernon had called his father a drunken wastrel and his mum little more than a prostitute, but Harry didn't believe him.
And now he was here, in Wonderland. Walking along a broken, crumbly road made of bricks, stones, and bits of old machinery. Off to see the Mad Hatter, or so Alice had told him. He wondered if this Mad Hatter was anything like in the storybook, but doubted it. This Wonderland was different. It could kill you. He'd seen Alice fight that...thing. The Ruin, she called it. He'd never seen anybody fight like that. The orphans sometimes fought in the dusty play yard out back, but it was all flailing fists and kicks, and was usually broken up quickly by Matron. And of course, the one-sided fights with Dudley. But those were different. Alice had looked like a whirlwind. A deadly one, made up of blue gingham and swirling hair and of course, that wickedly sharp vorpal blade she had pulled so reverently from the monster's skeleton.
Him? He got a stick. His nose scrunched as he pulled it once more out of his pocket to examine it. It was approximately eleven inches long and Alice had said it looked like it was holly wood. How on earth that Cat had gotten hold of it, he had no idea. (Although if he had asked, the Cat would have said Ollivander's and left the both of them more baffled than before.) He felt pleasantly warm when he held it, like he'd just gotten a nice slab of chocolate. Once or twice, it looked like the end had lit up with golden sparks, although Harry was sure that was just a trick of the light. Magic wasn't real, after all.
The Dursleys had been real big on that. Magic wasn't real. Fantasy was not to be brought into the house. Not even Dudley was exempt from that, although admittedly, he had little interest in anything but food and bullying Harry. Harry had had to sneak fantasy tales in the few brief moments he got between chores, scoldings, and beatings, but they'd always been worth it.
Now he'd been dropped headlong into a fantasy book. With Alice, who he liked a lot more than he'd expected to. She was a kindred spirit, he'd sensed it the moment she'd spotted him sitting outside Houndsditch. There was a wildness about her, something that could not be tamed no matter what Dr. Bumby tried to make her forget.
Ahead of them, something scuttled across the road. Immediately, Alice was on alert. Harry's fingers clenched around the wand. They were still in danger, and he would do well not to forget that. No matter how innocuous Wonderland seemed.
Then the air was full of scuttling sounds, and rustling sounds, and the hiss of what seemed a tea-kettle. And suddenly, they were surrounded.