It didn't take long for Dumbledore to return to the school. As soon as Harry collapsed, Madame Pomfrey quickly got over her initial shock and, after placing the unconscious student into the bed normally reserved for Professor Snape, contacted McGonagall to alert her as to what had happened. Then, she turned toward healing what injuries she could see. There were several cuts and scratches around his scar which had to be healed, and his arm mended.
She had no more finished removing the sling from Harry's arm when Dumbledore appeared in her office with Remus Lupin, Arthur Weasley, and a large black dog who, as soon as they stepped into the small room where Harry lay, turned into Sirius Black. Sirius was instantly at Harry's side, sitting on the edge of the bed holding his hand, while Remus repeated the story of how Harry was tracked down and came to be in the Hospital Wing. When he was finished, he handed over the file he had collected from the Muggle doctor's desk to Madame Pomfrey, who began looking over it as soon as it reached her hands.
"Gods preserve us, look at all the medications they've been giving him!" She flipped several pages, tsking and huffing at the poor job the hospital had done in preserving her charge. "If the boy has gone insane, it's because of all these poisons they've injected into him!"
"We must be sure, Poppy," Dumbledore told her patiently, though his eyes were on the unconscious boy on the bed. "There must have been a reason he was admitted to such a hospital in the first-."
The Headmaster was interrupted as shrill screams erupted from the bed. Sirius leaned over Harry, trying to restrain the flailing arms of the smaller boy, trying to reason with him, explain where he was.
"No! NO!" Harry began screaming. "Stop! Not again!" Then his voice became very low as he pronounced very calmly, "You know the price of failure. Crucio!" He began screaming hysterically again just as Pomfrey reached his side with a cup in her hand and, with Sirius' help, poured the potion down Harry's throat. He calmed and fell to sleep again.
"What was that?" Remus asked, his eyes wide with shock.
"I'm not sure," came the answer from the headmaster. "But I am now more impatient than ever for Severus to return."
Snape appeared nearly an hour later, looking gravely composed as he sought out both Dumbledore and Madame Pomfrey, finding them both where he had expected: the small room where Potter lay. He called them away from the others and stood in the office of the Hospital Wing.
"He did not know me," he told them, his one as devoid of emotion as if he had been commenting on a plain toad by the lake. "Even after I removed my mask, he did not know me."
"He didn't have his glasses when I found him," Pomfrey told him. "Perhaps he simply could not make out your face." But Snape was shaking his head.
"Potter has heard my voice for four years now," he told her. "Regardless of whether or not he's listened to what I've taught, he would know my voice as he would know the voices of Filius or Minerva or the Headmaster."
Pomfrey opened her mouth to disagree, Snape interjected before her voice left her throat.
"Did he recognize you when he saw you?"
"I just said he wasn't wearing his glasses."
"How did he react?"
"He was quite agitated, naturally. He passed out of fright."
"Fright?" His eyes met the Headmaster's, but said nothing more, reserving the ensuing silence for thought.
"Let Harry rest all he can, Poppy. From the bags under his eyes, he has had very little." Dumbledore said finally. "We can know nothing more of his condition until he wakes. However, if what Severus tells us is true, if Harry has forgotten things he should know, we must know as soon as possible."
"Albus," Snape replied as soon as Madame Pomfrey went to check on her patient, "surely you understand the implications."
"I do. But it also means young Harry is not so insane as his previous doctors supposed. Imagine waking up without a memory of who you are or where you are, knowing nothing of what has happened to you up until you opened your eyes in a hospital bed. Now imagine that in the confusion of your own identity, you feel the sharp pains in your forehead, hear voices in your sleep, see Voldemort as he tortures his victims and followers. And imagine, as I suspect is the case, that you see these things as well from his mind, formed as it was from hatred and loathing. Harry might have difficulty dealing with all this when he knew the causes, but when that knowledge was taken from him-."
"He appeared, and perhaps believed himself to be, insane."
Harry opened his eyes to an unfamiliar world. It consisted of a dimly lit white room containing five people. He knew he was in a room, but he didn't know where. He knew that he was in a bed. And he knew that the people in the room were wearing clothes of black, white, red, and blue, but he did not know the people. He watched them look at him and lean over him. He watched their mouths move, but he heard nothing of what they said, so clouded was his mind by exhaustion and medication. He felt only pain in both his head and his body. Soon, he closed his eyes again.
Sometime later, he opened his eyes again and was aware that the number of people in the room was different. The two were ones he had seen before: an old man with white hair and a very long beard, and an older woman with dark hair in a tight bun and piercing blue eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses.
On another occasion, another man, thin and pale-skinned with a narrow hooked nose, leaned close to him, looking into his eyes. His hair was long and dark, and leaning so close, Harry could see that it was greasy. Then, the face wavered and became two faces, alternately overlapping then drifting apart. A vague memory came to him of the man writhing in agony on the cold ground. Pain pounded behind his eyes. He closed them again.
The next time Harry opened his eyes, he saw another woman leaning over him. She was dressed all in white and held a hand to his forehead. His head was clear, the voices silent. His head was not threatening to explode. He looked past the woman where he could make out two men. One was dressed fully in black with long dark hair and pale blue eyes. The other was standing next to him with lighter brown hair speckled with gray and green eyes so light they appeared almost gold. He was studying these two men who were conversing quietly, seemingly unaware of him, when the woman began to speak.
"Potter?" Harry swung his eyes back to hers, which were peering down at him. "Harry Potter, are you in there?"
Harry saw the two men start, then move closer to the bed. They too were looking down at him, as if they expected some answer he could not give. They remained watching him for some time, waiting for an answer, but he gave none.
'Who is Harry Potter?' he wondered. 'Is that my name?' He wasn't used to being called by any particular name, nor was he used to his head being so quiet. 'Is that my name?'
The sudden realization that he could not answer that question while these three unfamiliar people were staring down at him, calling him by that name, filled him with terror. His eyes filled with tears. He felt the woman take his hand, and looked around the room again. The brown haired man had disappeared.
"Harry, can you hear me?" she asked, gazing down at him.
Harry simply gazed back. He wanted to answer, but something held him back. His mouth, his tongue, his vocal chords did not seem to want to obey him. He felt as if he had never spoken before, though he knew he had. He knew he had screamed at and pleaded with the voices in his head. But had he spoken? Frustrated at having no answer in his memory, he squeezed his eyes shut.
"Harry, can you understand what I am saying to you?" Her tone changed suddenly. "I know you can see me and that you can hear me, so if you understand me, I need you to squeeze my hand. Can you do that? Squeeze my hand just as I am squeezing yours."
A kind smile spread across her face as she felt the pressure on her hand.
"Good, Harry. That's good. Now, do you know who you are or where you are? If you do, squeeze my hand again, just like you just did." She waited for a moment, but no answer came. "Very well, if you do not know either who you are or where you are, squeeze my hand." Harry squeezed, and she sat back with a short cry, but only for a moment. She leaned over him again.
"Your name is Harry Potter. You're a student at Hogwarts. That's where you are now. It's a school. Your school." She glanced up at the man in black for a moment who was now leaning over the bed, his face looking very pale, then back down at Harry. A small frown touched her lips. "Can you say your name? Can you say 'Harry'?"
He tried to answer her, but his lips and throat were so dry, he could do nothing with them. He heard only a dry rasp escape his throat where he had determined to make words. The man in black disappeared for a moment, then returned with a cloth, which he used to wet the boy's lips. Then, he lifted his head carefully so he could drink. All the while, Harry kept his eyes on this man's face, which was gaunt and frightening, but when the man noticed Harry watching him so carefully, the face cheered, and a warm smile brightened the face. All at once, Harry felt comforted by it, though he did not understand why.
"I'm Sirius," the man said, cupping Harry's cheek gently. "Sirius Black. I'm your godfather. Sirius."
"Sirius," Harry repeated softly.
"That's right, Harry. That's right." The man was smiling, but his voice broke. A tear slid down his cheek.
"You're Sirius," Harry said to him. "And I'm Harry-." He stole a glance back at the woman for help. "Potter. I'm Harry Potter. And this is Hogwarts."
"By Merlin-." The voice startled all of them, and Harry looked toward the entrance to see that the brown haired man had returned with two other men. The elderly man with the beard came toward the bed and sat on the edge, looking down at Harry. His sad blue eyes gazed down at him through half-moon spectacles perched on a rather long nose. After a long silence, the man reached out and clasped Harry's hand. "How are you, Harry Potter? I am Professor Dumbledore." He glanced behind him to where the brown haired man was standing wide-eyed. "This is Remus Lupin. And Professor Snape." He motioned toward a tall man who stood quite apart from the others. He was dressed in black, as Sirius was, but his eyes were so dark, they too seemed black. He was watching Harry carefully, and making the boy feel uncomfortable under the penetrating stare. "You have no idea, my dear boy," Dumbledore continued, drawing Harry's eyes back to him, "how happy we are that you are back here with us."
Harry looked quietly around the room, taking in the faces of these adults who seemed to know him, yet whom he could not remember. It was hardest to look at the man called Sirius who looked as if he were the butt of a bad joke. He looked as if he were going to break down any moment.
Everyone was looking at him expectantly. A lump welled in Harry's throat, but he fought for control before a sob could be wrenched out. He sat silently, controlling the emotions that threatened to scream out in the emptiness of his brain.
"Do you know me?" he asked finally. "All of you, you know me?" He looked at each face carefully, searching his memory for some reference to those around him, but found none but the torture of the severe looking one (Professor Snape, was it?). "Why, then, can't I remember any of you?"
"That is a very good question. Poppy?"
The woman named Poppy straightened and looked around her, unsure whether she should be addressing Harry or the entire room.
"It's called amnesia, Potter. It is a loss of memory. It happens in varying degrees of severity. Sometimes, one simply forgets who they are, but remember everyone and everything else. For some, there are simply holes, gaps in their memory. Other times, they remember themselves, but nothing else. And for a very few, the mind is wiped completely clean, and one is like a new babe. It seems that for Harry, it is a minor case of the latter."
"Is it permanent?" It was Remus Lupin who spoke this time, his eyes never leaving Harry as he spoke.
"I don't know. It can be. It's different for everyone."
"Does he remember anything?" Professor Snape asked. His voice was low and steady, but something in it sent shivers down Harry's spine.
Poppy looked at Harry, whose eyes were still glued on the professor.
"I don't know. Harry hasn't been awake for very long, so we haven't had a chance to-."
Before the sentence could be finished, a short stick had appeared in Professor Snape's hand. He whipped it toward Harry, moving his lips as if speaking. Everyone else in the room was shocked, except for Remus Lupin, who reacted by grabbing Professor Snape's arm.
"What the hell are you doing, Snape?" Sirius yelled.
"That," Snape answered, folding his arms across his chest and nodding toward Harry, whose hand had slipped into his sleeve, as if trying to find something. "Potter keeps his wand up that sleeve. He reacted to a possible threat by going for his wand. Apparently, he hasn't forgotten everything."
"I see," Dumbledore murmured, his face brightening considerably.
"What are you? Some kind of bloody idiot?" Sirius was still screaming. "You could have hurt him!"
"Down boy," Snape replied coolly. "If Potter's condition gets out, he will be an even greater target than he already is. If he can't protect himself, we need to know that right now."
"And the best way to do that is by trying to curse the boy after everything-."
"I was reciting nonsense, Black. Any decent wizard would have recognized that." He looked pointedly at the other man. "What's important is that he knew how to react."
"I agree," Dumbledore said, putting an end to the argument. "Harry will be in danger, and he will most definitely need to know how to protect himself. He may know how to react, but he may not remember the spells."
Harry watched them all in confusion, slowly withdrawing his hand from up his sleeve, wondering if perhaps he was still in the hospital and these people were as crazy as he was. Spells? Wands? Was this another figment of his mind? Quite suddenly, hot pain shot through his forehead, forcing all of his thoughts from his brain. He was aware of nothing but the fire in his skull.
The adults in the room froze as Harry's body stiffened. One hand shot up toward his forehead, fingers extended as he dug his nails into the skin around his scar, drawing blood, first to the surface of the skin, then to tiny rivulets that dripped slowly from between his fingers. Pomfrey moved to help him, but was stopped by Dumbledore. Harry was muttering to himself in a low voice, when his body suddenly slackened, his hand fell from his forehead, and he looked up at those around him. His face was changed, tightened, frightening as it was with thin lines of blood making their way down the side of his nose and brow, framed by his long hair. His eyes bore into the headmaster, glowing sinisterly above a sneering mouth, which opened to emit speech.
"It is done." An eerie laugh filled the room. Everyone's skin crawled. The laugh turned into a scream.
"Get out! Get out!" Hands raised again to tear at their body's own flesh. "Stop it! STOP!" Harry was rocking back and forth on the bed. His knees, covered with a sheet, were drawn to his chest, as if to protect himself.
The room watched in silence as the scene played out. The screaming stopped, but the boy continued rocking and clawing at his forehead. The Headmaster motioned for Madame Pomfrey to administer a potion, and the boy soon quieted into sleep.
"It seems," Dumbledore said finally, "Harry's illness may not be merely what we at first believed." His eyes met Snape's. "I only hope we can stop it."
* * *
I hope this was fairly clear for you. As for Harry being crazy, just in case you didn't understand Dumbledore's explanation: because Harry lost his memory, he didn't understand the voices in his head. Hence, he was screaming at them and clawing at his scar, which gave him immense pain. However, as you saw in the end, there's still more to it!
As for the opening and closing his eyes at the beginning of this last section, I saw it as Poppy letting Harry sleep for a day or two (or three) for his own health and while the medications from the Muggle hospital ran their course. Sorry if that was odd. It's hard to write from the pov of a crazy person awakening from a drugged induced slumber. Sorry, never been there.
Just a note, as the school year is beginning soon, I'm spending all my time preparing for the students to return next week, so it may be a little longer than usual before I can get another chapter out. I'm aiming for next weekend, but if it's longer, I'm sorry.