AUTHOR'S NOTE - NOT MANDATORY BUT STILL IMPORTANT

Before we start this chapter, I just wanted to warn you that this story will reference abuse and dark themes – Harry has DID and this disorder is caused by trauma. Here, the abuse of a child. Turn away now if you don't want that.

Onto lighter subjects, I'm one of those people that'll unintentionally switch between past tense and present tense when writing, and although I really try to proofread, some things slip past me. If there's a random tense change, tell me and I'll fix it as soon as possible!

I am by no means an expert in DID, I'm doing my best. If I do end up writing something wrong, please notify me so I can fix it.

And as a last note: a lot of POV changes in this chapter, which shouldn't appear in later ones.

Enjoy!

HARRY

At age eight, Harry knew he wasn't normal.

For one, he could hear voices.

They were in his own mind, sure, and they usually gave him advice instead of saying anything creepy, but still. They were sometimes male and sometimes female, and sometimes all he heard were sound relating to animals. The fact of the matter was that he heard voices.

Adding on to that, he was constantly blacking out.

It always happened when Uncle Vernon got angry, really angry. It was like he fell asleep every time, and then woke up again in his cupboard, sore all over.

He didn't really know why it happened, and he had no way to find anything on it.

He'd realized it wasn't normal when he was around six, when he'd found a book in the library about thoughts, and nothing in it described what he heard. There was nothing about memory blanks either.

Still Harry didn't dare say anything about it, because all it would bring was a blackout.

And then he was locked out of the house, one warm spring evening.

REMUS

Remus Lupin, after the death of his closest friends and the imprisonment of his fiance, realized that brooding and cursing Dumbledore would not make said people happy. So, deciding to do something productive, he figured he might as well try and find a way to control his Wolf that wasn't the Wolfsbane. The potion only worked to the extent that it stopped the Wolf from going feral. Otherwise, it was still very uncontrolled, and he desperately needed some way to help his Wolf – and himself- cope with the deaths of most members of his Pack.

Because the magical world disappointed him in that matter, even internationally, he decided that he would get down to the basics – muggle science.

He found himself in Surrey, near a street called 'Privet Drive', in the library that was the closest to where he lived, reading through a book on mental disorders. So far, the closest he'd found was Multiple Personality Disorder, or more recently Dissociative Identity Disorder, and he'd been trying for years to collect all of the information he could on it. The muggle perspective on the mind also happened to interest him.

The book didn't give him much information he didn't already have, but he borrowed it anyway, just in case. He left the library. His Wolf had been acting weird all day, and in this instance, made Remus walk into a grocery store and buy a pack of sushi with a water bottle and a banana.

The things he did for his other soul.

HARRY

Harry wandered over to a park slightly outside Privet Drive after Aunt Petunia told him that he would be let back in at sunrise tomorrow. It was thankfully warm, so he wouldn't spend the night freezing. There was a single other man in the park, with sandy blonde hair, shabby clothes and strange scars on his face. The man was reading. Harry was curious, because he'd never seen this man before, and he knew every single person that lived on both Privet Drive and Wisteria Walk.

He walked up to the bench the man was sitting on and sat down next to him. The man turned to him, and his eyes immediately widened. Harry frowned and cocked his head.

"Hello."

The man blinked a few times, and then smiled. It was strangely familiar to Harry. "Hello."

Harry smiled brightly. The man's voice was smooth and quiet. It was really nice to listen to.

"What's your name?" asked Harry.

"Remus Lupin. And you?"

"Harry Potter. What're you reading?"

REMUS

The child in front of him had James Potter's messy black hair and Lily Potter's startling green eyes. Still, Remus knew how to recognize neglect. The boy was much too thin, and although he couldn't see them well, knew the child probably had bruises and scars. It wouldn't be Harry. He was supposed to be safe.

"What's your name?" the boy asked.

"Remus Lupin. And you?"

"Harry Potter. What're you reading?"

Remus decided that either Fate was teasing him, or he had just become incredibly lucky for the first time in his life. "A book on the mind."

Where the boy –Harry- had looked mildly interested before, now he looked curious, much more than a child should be.

"What's it about?"

Remus smiled, deciding to indulge him. "It's about a disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder. Multiple Personality Disorder might make more sense to you, though."

"What is it?"

HARRY

The nice man, Remus, smiled at Harry kindly, "It's about a disorder called Dissociative Identity Disorder. Multiple Personality Disorder might make more sense to you, though."

"What is it?" Harry was curious. The man looked smart, and his kind smile was achingly familiar to Harry. One of the voices was acting up, but Harry didn't understand what it was saying. He couldn't not trust the man. Maybe he knew what was wrong with him.

"It's something that happens to the mind when a child experiences trauma when they're young. It's like… Imagine the mind is a jigsaw puzzle, completely finished. And then something happens and the pieces if the jigsaw break apart." Remus stopped. "Are you following? This might be a bit complicated for you."

Harry shook his head vehemently. He wanted, needed, to know more.

"Ok then. So we have several broken pieces of a jigsaw, but they're part of one puzzle, just broken apart. Does that make sense?" At Harry's nod, he continued. "Multiple Personality Disorder is a bit like that, except here, the jigsaw is the mind, and the pieces are parts of a person's personality."

"And what does it do to a person?"

The man in front of him hummed thoughtfully. "Well, the different parts usually create entire identities for themselves, and each have a role related to the trauma. When they're needed, they 'come out', in a way. The Host –that's the main person- blacks out until the other personality retreats inside the mind. It does say that the Host can actually hear the voices of the other personalities, even when they aren't in control."

REMUS

Remus watched the child in front of him light up, like something had clicked into place all of a sudden. The eyes were almost glowing with joy, and Remus's Wolf started barking happily for the first time since Halloween seven years ago. This was his Harry. He hadn't lost all of his Pack after all.

Still, why did he react this way?

Remus watched Harry intently, the way he winced slightly when he shifted in certain ways, the way his feet were positioned for escape. His enhanced eyes spotted a bruise peeking out of his sleeve, the remains of one on his face.

Maybe, just maybe…

Should he try?

If Harry was being hurt by whoever he was staying with, maybe Remus could do something about it, or at least try to help. He understood why his Wolf told him to buy food, now. He needed to make sure his theory was wrong first, though. If it was, then maybe he wasn't being hurt as badly as he could have been. Something safe, maybe a good memory?

"Harry?"

Still beaming, he turned towards him. Remus took a deep breath. Here it goes. He hoped his suspicions were wrong, that his honorary godson didn't have DID.

"Do you remember Moony?"

His eyes suddenly became unfocused and he blinked several times. Dissociating.

Remus had been studying the disorder long enough to recognize the symptoms described when Dissociating.

The eyes lost the glazed look soon, and they'd also lost their green colour. They were the colour of the sky now, a soft baby blue that Remus knew was a colour James had secretly loved. The nursery had been painted that shade.

The child turned towards Remus and launched themselves at him. He caught them in his arms and they latched on, almost like a koala.

It's a thing that Harry the very-probably-abused child would never do. But maybe an Alter would.

"Uncle Moony!"

Remus had to bite his lip so he didn't cry, because every symptom of DID was coming up, and that meant that this was an Alter and not Harry. But it was his voice and his glittering eyes.

"What's your name, cub?"

"I'm Rose, Moony!"

A girl, then. Alters of a different gender weren't completely uncommon.

Rose stayed on his lap for a few minutes, chattering on to who she was. Six years old, Little, the 'What If's?" of Harry's childhood if Lily and James were still alive. Five minutes later, she yawned and pouted. "Harry wants to come back now. Bye, Uncle Moony."

While she was unfocused, he set Harry down so as to not confuse him too much.

Harry blinked in, and his eyes turned back to green.

"What happened?" He blinked a few times, and his eyes widened. "Did I black out?"

Remus smiled, hopefully reassuringly. "Yes."

"Oh… I'm really sorry, sir. What happened?"

Remus smiled softly at the child. "I'm not sure how to explain it here. But it's getting cold out, why don't we go to the library, and I'll do it then?"

Harry nodded, still looking confused but smiling. "Okay."

Remus stood up and Harry followed suit, although and his posture was less wary than it was before. He really hoped he could help Harry early, because there were too many cases of people being scared of the disorder and refusing to acknowledge it.

Besides, in a completely non-creepy way, experiencing it firsthand could help his research, maybe he could try and help people with DID better.

He hoped this didn't end in a disaster.

AUTHOR'S NOTE – PLEASE READ FOR BACKGROUND

Hello, and welcome to my first multi-chapter story!

I've been wanting to write a story with Harry having DID for a while now, and I've been reading a lot of them. Still, I've noticed that most of them had Snape noticing first, and Remus finding out later, Harry never knowing about his DID before Hogwarts. I wanted to have him know, because I thought it could be interesting to see his reactions to his adventures at Hogwarts knowing about his Alters.

Keep in mind that although I've researched it, I'm not an expert by any means. I also recommend the YouTube channels DissociaDID and TeamPiñata. They're run by people with DID, and I've learned a lot watching their videos.

The metaphor to the jigsaw might not be accurate at 100%, but I tried my best, and I figured an eight-year old like Harry would understand it to some extent. He's also smarter than average because of his lack of childhood. His Alters come Out for the worst of it, but he still knows that he gets hurt by the Dursleys – bruises and scars and all that. An added note: the older Alters in his system make it so he's booksmarter.

Also understand that Harry trusts Remus easily because he realizes that hearing voices and having memory gaps isn't normal, and thinks that Remus might know about it. He also vaguely recognizes Remus, but the Alter I introduced, Rose, knows him really, and she's influencing Harry's feelings slightly, so that he just gets this feeling of 'nothing is giving me a bad feeling about this guy'. Remember that Harry, even without the worst memories, still knows that he's being neglected (I've already said this before but whatever) and hurt from the pain. He has a survival instinct that exists because of this and in this story, is good at knowing if people are suspicious. An internal 'danger' alarm, I guess. And Remus isn't setting it off. To compare, almost everyone on Privet Drive does set it off, because they see him as a delinquent not-normal child.

I'll elaborate on his Alters more and more as the story progresses, but I don't have a perfectly clear layout of where this is going yet. Keep in mind that this is the first story I've written where I've actually tried to think ahead – at least in terms of Harry's Alters.

Okay, that's done.

I'mma go write the second chapter now!

See you next time!

Much love, Omega.