Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or any of its characters, they belong to J.K. Rowling. I'm not making any profit from writing this.

This chapter isn't betaed, any mistakes are my own and English is definitely not my first language. Constructive criticism is much appreciated, flames are not.

Aline's thoughts

Harry's thoughts


Aline woke up feeling squeezed into a too tight dress. She was sure her eyes were open, but her surroundings remained dark.

There's a light up there.

Aline allowed Harry to take control and pull the cord. A sorry little light bulb flickered on.

We'll have to turn it off before Aunt Petunia comes downstairs.

Aline hummed and nodded in agreement. The cupboard was small, she was on a tiny cot taking up the entire floor space. The covers were a dull brown and worn out. There was some sort of electric thing on the wall, with two shelves beneath it with all of Harry's textbooks, a black backpack and several sets of Dudley's old clothes.

There was also a glass of water, still full. Harry was too busy being dead to drink.

The child laughed. I'm thirsty now.

Aline realised he was right, they were thirsty. She wanted to drink it all but Harry told her to drink only half, that he didn't know what time it was and it had to last them until morning.

I'll kill them. She promised him.

You can't. He said simply.

Aline knew he was right. First, she didn't have the means to get away with it. Second, she couldn't attract Dumbledore's attention. Third… where will we live? Suggested Harry.

Aline laughed, I love how neither of us used 'it's wrong' as a reason.

They killed me. Shrugged Harry. Aline could actually feel [her] [his] their shoulders moving.

Do you remember falling off that tree? She asked curiously.

Yeah, but when I woke up, I didn't remember the grey place but now I remember both times I was there.

Aline saw the memories he was talking about. The fear from being there alone, meeting James and Lily [mom and dad] and realising they loved him. Things are different now. It made sense they would remember. She was glad for it too, it would be hard to explain to the child what was happening otherwise and her being confused too by what the hell was happening would make it worse. She shivered at the thought and pushed it out of her mind.

We should meditate. She told her companion.

What's that?

Relax. She turned off the light, laid back down on the bed and breathed. In, 1,2. Out, 3,4. In, 1,2. Out, 3,4. In, out.

She sank, deep within herself.

§§§

"Well, this is unexpected." Aline wasn't really surprised by her appearance being the same as in the In-Between. Now that she'd been shown her true self, it was unsurprising that her mind avatar would reflect that. With just a thought, she was back to looking completely human.

What had her staring in consternation was her mind's new aesthetic.

It had always looked like a forest, with tree houses connected by rope bridges. The treehouses, 5 in total, were filled with her memories. "I guess I'll have to protect them now that mind readers are a thing."

"They are?" piped up the small form by her side.

She hummed in agreement and stared at the holes in her beautiful trees. They were dark and reminded her an awful lot of that damned cupboard.

"Come on Harry," she grabbed his hand and led him up the stairs leading to her Happy Treehouse, where she kept all her better memories. "We'll merge faster if we see each other's memories."

"These are all yours?" he looked around curiously.

She grinned, "I'm a lot older than you kid." She wasn't, 12 years wasn't that much but it sure looked like a chasm when you were Harry's age.

She left him in the treehouse with her Memory Mirrors and climbed down to the ground. She peered into the hollow of her Happy Tree and took a deep breath.

This would make things easier in the long run, but she wasn't excited about seeing his memories, the kid's life seemed to suck.

§§§

Aline should have probably thought things through more carefully.

Harry's third death had been an accident. Yes, Vernon did push him in the cupboard but it's not like he would know that he'd hit his head and die. This fact had, stupidly, lulled her into a false sense of security. It made her believe, foolishly, that Harry, while heavily neglected, wasn't actually physically abused.

She really should have remembered that Petunia tries to hit him with a frying pan in the second book and that Vernon grabs him by the neck and fucking admitted to beating him! But they were children's books and all instances of abuse were quickly glossed over.

This was worse. In a daze, Aline waited for Harry to come down from the treehouse. She couldn't watch more, not yet. She had a double murder to plan.

§§§

"Wake up, freak!" yelled a screeching harpy while pounding on the door.

Harry shot up from the bed and hastily exited the cupboard when the door opened.

"You have 10 minutes;" she sneered.

Harry quickly grabbed clean clothes from his shelves and walked up the stairs, careful to not wake Uncle Vernon and Dudley.

The shower was quick and cursory and he hastily made his way down the stairs to make breakfast.

Aline let him stay in control, observing a typical day at Number 4, Privet Drive.

As soon as breakfast was done, Harry was shoved back in the cupboard with two slices of toast and a glass of orange juice.

Once Vernon left and Dudley was sitting in front of the telly, he was led back to the kitchen by Aunt Petunia to wash the dishes. Then to weed the garden and water the flowers.

Lunch was a hamburger steak with roasted potatoes for Dudley and a salad for Petunia. The only thing he got was a piece of cold turkey on a single slice of bread and a glass of water.

He did the laundry, cleaned the bathrooms and folded all the clothes once Petunia was done ironing them.

Aline was surprised the woman still insisted on ironing and cleaning the rest of the house herself. Well, what else would she do? It's not like she has a job.

Harry cooked dinner and was shoved back in the cupboard with an apple and a cheese sandwich as soon as Petunia heard Vernon's car.

Aline would like to believe the woman was protecting [them] him, but Harry told her she was just buttering her husband up to ask for a bigger allowance and seeing Harry made him cranky like nothing else.

§§§

Aline couldn't do much to fight back against the Dursley, or anything really, so she focused on speeding up the merge between her and Harry so she could finally use her Gift.

Her and Harry meditated every night, sharing memories and talking. Their mindscapes were merging, the treehouses becoming a single tree with a huge, castle-like treehouse that started from the base of the tree, ran inside its huge trunk and was built all around its branches.

There were fireflies flying around the clearing that would burn any intruder, foxes that would jump up from the roots of the forest trees and bite and claw at them. Hawks sleeping in the branches, ready to swoop down and rip eyes out.

The only way inside the tree house was to climb to the top, but the ladder was made of vines that would trap and strangle anyone that didn't have the password ('we'll have a wonderful daughter who will persevere'). Even the door to the treehouse was password protected, 'I open at the close' ("It sounds mysterious!" said Harry in excitement. Aline just sighed and let him do it).

A mistake there would result in the flowers on the door spitting out neon coloured acid, the landing disappearing and throwing the intruder down the tree into the waiting arms of all their traps.

That last one was all Harry, he wanted a dramatic finale for anyone who managed to survive the rest.

§§§

Happy birthday Harry.

Happy new birthday Aline.

§§§

Aline was grinning, heedless of the blood in her mouth. She ran from Dudley and his fast-footed friend today. She'd run and she'd flown! With her their own body they were floating up the tree.

They'd escaped Dudley's childish wrath but he'd tattled. Of course he had, he was the only one unwilling to believe they'd simply climbed up the tree. The other kids didn't really believe their eyes, taught by their parents that there was no such thing as magic.

For all that the Dursley refused to use that word, they sure taught their son to believe in the unbelievable. Dudley believed his eyes and while he didn't really understand, he knew that every weird instance was his cousin's fault.

Really, for a couple so fixated on normal, they were the very reason their son wasn't that.

A vicious tug on [his] her hair forced her mind back to the present.

"You ungrateful freak!" Vernon threw her [his] little body on the floor.

She wheezed as he kicked her stomach. Instinct had her trying to curl up in a ball, but Harry knew to keep his head away from the line of fire.

One, two, three.

He grabbed her by her short hair again and yelled in her face, "We took you under our roof and you dare bring that freakishness into our home!" His face was a very unattractive purple, spittle flying everywhere as he wheezed.

I can't believe he's tired already.

Don't complain, Harry scolded her. It's better for us.

"I'm sorry Uncle Vernon, I'm so…" Aline forcefully snapped her mouth shut. It was a habit, Harry always pleaded.

She wasn't him. She knew, as did he, that pleading did nothing. That Vernon would keep going until he was satisfied, that sometimes pleading made it worse because Vernon liked it. It made him feel strong, powerful in the face of someone, something, he didn't understand. Something he feared.

Because Aline knew they feared them. Their magic. They feared the day he wouldn't be scared anymore, terrified of the retribution that may befall them and desperate to scare Harry enough that he'd rather run than seek revenge.

It might not be fully formed in their mind, but Aline knew fear, she could see it in their eyes when the Dursely looked at them. This was a power move. He was trying to assert his dominance and she'd rather bite her tongue than submit.

They couldn't kill them, [he] [they] she'd always come back.

She didn't fear the pain. Harry might beg, might be willing to apologise for being who he was, for a power he couldn't control, but Aline never would.

She hadn't begged when her mother hit her for forgetting her place. She hadn't apologised when she refused to listen to her teachers, she'd proven them all wrong in the end. She didn't beg when she was betrothed and saw her end coming. She planned and she plotted and she escaped.

She was here and they were gone and she'd never, never apologise to her abusers.

So she glared at him, eyes burning through the tears she couldn't control. Crying wasn't a weakness. Not to her. It was a natural reaction to pain and she wasn't ashamed of them. Not with hatred and rage burning in her soul and the knowledge that one day THEY'D MAKE HIM PAY.

He paled, the fat man who had them in his grip, who wanted them broken and weak.

She smiled.

§§§

Harry was less solid in their mindscape. Green bleeding into her eyes as the colour dripped out of his.

They were beneath the tree, in a cave network with no defences. There was no point.

The only way in was through the treehouse, down the trunk and take the path beneath the roots. If someone got inside the house, they'd already lost.

The caves were a recent addition, born from memories of Harry's dark cupboard being the only safe place in that house and Aline's refusal to have any physical reminder of the Dursley in their head.

Caves were dark, but airy. Safe, but not restrictive. A compromise.

The caves had mirrors of all shapes and sizes hanging from the walls. They were Aline's memories.

The treehouse was Harry's, the trunk contained his deaths.

It was poetic, in a way. Harry hid Aline while she supported him.

Not entirely correct, given that they were slowly becoming one, but if someone did get past their defenses (they refused to arrogantly believe that no one could) they would hopefully stop at Harry and not look deeper.

If they did, the layout might convince them that she was a past life he remembered, rather than a completely different person.

After all, the damning conversation between herself and his [her] parents was hidden beneath the pool of water in the very last cave at the end of the tunnel, separated from the rest.

Two stone statues, a badger and a lion, guarded the entrance of the cave while a pair of crocodiles slept beneath the water.

HarryandAline had wanted a giant snake, but it was better to avoid such a weakness when Voldemort was still their enemy.

This cave was too precious to leave defenceless, to not invest in a last ditch effort to keep it safe.

After all, far above the water pool, floated a sphere of rose coloured light with green and gold tendrils slowly tangling inside the sphere. Already, several strands were braided together, spreading from the sphere into the walls like veins of green-and-gold.

This was their magic.