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Disclaimer: I don't own it. Do I ever?

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Chapter Four

Of troubled minds

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When Harry had drunk the potion, his first thought, and last in a twisted sort of way, had been that he was about to die.

He had, of course, immediately felt the total irony of the idea.

He was going to die? Here? Now? Where was Voldemort? Where was Dumbledore? Where was the final battle? Where were the armies? The death eaters? The wands? The thoughts? The ideas? The answers? Where was it all? How could he die from simply a potion gone wrong?

Harry Potter, he had thought to himself, was not supposed to die like this, in a potions class, being poisoned by his professor.

Could life get any stupider?

Apparently, he thought as he felt his mind slowly rising to consciousness, it can.

Cody Potter flopped down on his bed, pulling the heavy book that he had been reading up and onto his pillow as he buried his head next to it. After a few seconds, the need for oxygen drove him up again and he sighed, rolling onto his back so he stared up at the baby blue ceiling of his room.

The book was a big, leather bound volume that he had been reading in an attempt to find out some reason for the sudden and quite random appearance of his brother, his dead brother, in his world. Something had been nagging him since he had heard the story the adults had delivered to him and his sister, something that told him there was a flaw, a huge, enormous fault in the story his brother had told.

He glared at the book, which had been most unhelpful, before returning his gaze to the ceiling with a last, heartfelt sigh.

Something was wrong.

How anybody could miss it was beyond him.

The story they had been told was true, but only in a twisted and warped kind of way.

Something was very, very wrong with Harry Potter.

And Cody was determined to find out what it was.

The slight sound of the door opening made him look up in surprise, curious as to who would invade his domain. The flash of dark hair at the doorway came closer to him, and he felt the bed dip as Gypsy sat down. He rolled onto his side and waited for her to say something, after all, why else would she come into his room?

"Have you figured it out yet?" Gypsy's voice was uncharacteristically quite and solemn, but he could sense a growing excitement beneath her serious tone, and he sat up expectantly as he shook his head to the negative.

"Not yet. But... You noticed it too?" she snorted and looked at him like he was a total idiot.

"Um... how could I miss it exactly?"

"The adults seem to be doing a fine job of becoming blind, how was I to know whether or not you noticed?"

"I'm your sister, your other half, if you noticed, then I sure noticed"

"I could point out a lot of times when that wasn't exactly true, you know"

"You better bloody not"

"If that a threat, Addy?"

"Yes and don't call me that"

"Threatening is bad Addy, and why not?"

"Because it's not my name, you twat!"

"Do you think that I was born 'Audience' then? Really? Addy, grow a life"

"If you call me that one more time I'll tell Malfoy you think his sister's hot"

"I don't, though"

"He doesn't have to know that"

"You wouldn't dare! That's virtually homicide!"

"Try me"

"Fine then, Gypallia"

"One more word and I won't even bother to get Malfoy to do the dirty work. I will kill you myself" they both grinned at each other before simultaneously turning away and looking around the room. Gypsy started to hum under her breath and bounce up and down on his bed. Cody's eyes narrowed automatically at her.

"New rule. No bouncing on my bed, and in return I won't bounce on yours" Gypsy scowled but nodded, their previous bout of arguments seemingly forgotten.

"So, gave you figured it out yet? What's up with him" Cody asked, curious despite himself as to what his sister had discovered, and he was sure she'd discovered something; she wouldn't have bought it up if she hadn't.

Gypsy looked at him with impish delight as she nodded enthusiastically to the question.

"I think I've got something, but I'm not certain. It was something he said in the office, something that Padfoot said he said, which Siri dismissed pretty quick, but I reckon it was something he really didn't want them to remember. He covered it up pretty well, but no matter what he tried to do it was obvious he'd made a mistake" Cody's risen eyebrow made it clear that it had been anything but 'obvious'. Gypsy shrugged.

"Sometimes I reckon you're more thick (A/N: My computer has a grammar problem! Can't it see that more thick should soo be legitimate?) Than a brick wall, Cody. There really is no limit to your idiocy. It's not so much what he said, but what he didn't say. Siri said that at some point, Harry said something in some weird language" Cody frowned, he could see the oddness of the fact, but it wasn't overly incriminating.

"Did any of them recognise the language at least?" Cody asked, still considering what the 'problem' could be.

"Remus seemed to think it was Hebraic, i.e. Hebrew. (A/N: The next bit I'm not sure about since I'm not really all that into biblical stuff, so let's just pretend, if you do know, that it's true) Which happens to be one of the oldest languages in the world, it's what the bible was originally written in; it's the language of God, so to speak. But it gets better. There is no possible way that Harry could have learnt it, unless he either a, is hiding a secret, or b, is hiding an even bigger secret, and of course their's always c, we have no idea what we're talking about" Cody nodded, seemingly opting for the last idea.

"Hebrew? How did you know all that?"

"Just because I never listen in class doesn't mean I'm an idiot. If I want to find something out then I try my damned hardest. But I have a feeling this won't be as easy as normal" Gypsy said with a sigh, before perking up again "at least I get a bit of a challenge though!" it was Cody's turn to roll his eyes at his twin's comment, a small smile playing on his lips.

"Well it's bound to be complicated, there're alternate realities concerned here, and how can it not be complicated. Until this evening I'd never even heard of alternate reality's even existing. Even if it isn't really complicated, it's sure gonna look like it is" Gypsy was grinning mischievously by the time he had finished and gave a quick impatient nod in agreement.

"But it's gonna be fun. I'm sure happy I get to be a part of it all, imagine! We're possible the first people in the universe to ever actually come onto contact with the very idea" her voice was laden with excitement and her eyes shone with the possibilities while Cody nodded his own, somewhat more conservative agreement.

"Well, sure, in known history perhaps, yeah, come to think of it there might be other copies of us who already know about the different universes and that stuff. How weird would that be?" Gypsy nodded her agreement before bounding off his bed and standing near the door, obviously waiting for Cody to come too.

"We'd better be going down for lunch, mom was making rolls last time I saw her, in something of a frenzy. I think she just needed something to do, you know, anything but think?" Cody nodded his understanding before he rolled off the bed, landing with a thump on the floor, Gypsy looked at him disapprovingly.

"You'll get brain damage if you keep on doing that you twit. It can't be healthy" Cody just nodded again, still lying face down on the floor. Gypsy seemed to reconsider her words.

"Maybe it's a little to late to be worrying about the brain damage then" Cody nodded again before stopping suddenly and rolling over so he was on his back looking up at the still diminutive, although in his splayed position on the floor, taller than him, form of his sister.

He frowned.

"Was that an insult?" Gypsy just smirked at him, flicking blue-streaked hair over her shoulder as she glared down at her brother with a clear look of superiority on her face.

"Insult? Would I insult you Cody? Would I ever?" there was no reply as her brother sat up and then, virtually pulling all the sheets off the bed, clawed himself up into a standing position. Gypsy smiled at Cody sweetly, offering him her right arm.

"There now, no hard feelings" a reluctant smile tugged at her brothers lips as he took the arm with an elegant bow

"None whatsoever, my liege"

Lily Potter looked up in surprise as her two children stepped into the room, arm in arm, talking in the way of old Elizabethan gentlemen and gentleladies. Her head slowly dropped again as she realised it was just the two of them, and their silly antics.

The twins, both fifteen years old, seemed to many people to be as different as night and day.

The bouncy Gypsy, aptly named, many told her, with her laugh and mischievous ways, she could give any rover a run for his money; exploring left, right, centre, up and down in an attempt to find more things out and add them to her knowledge in the hope it would come close to that of her brother.

Cody, a subtle reminder and memoriam to Lily's first child, not often picked up upon. The American name was a reminder that Harry had died in the large country, but also a sign of forgiveness that Lily held no grudge against the America's in any way. Compared to his sister he was quite and studious, well ahead in all his studies and at times able to compete and sometimes triumph over the intellect and intelligence of even Hermione Granger.

But underneath the thick layers of jokes and pranks as well as books and conversations with leading wizards in all different fields, Gypsy and Cody could swap places and no one would know. Cody was by far the more roguish of the two, his sharp mind coming up with fun and games at every other second of the day. Gypsy herself was more concerned about rules than her brother, when he found something he cared to break them for. She was hesitant to completely step out of the boundaries always wanting the protection of her elders covering her to some minimum extent, something her brother, if he wanted to, had no qualms about.

The two children knew each other inside out.

They had grown up with a grieving family for the better part of their lives, something that had moulded them into the people they were. Both were extremely intelligent and both were equipped with the families and friends to use said intelligence to its total, and large, capacity.

Whoever said contacts didn't count was very, very wrong.

Lily Potter was proud of her children, and although the twins had originally been a mistake, she was glad that they were there to brighten up the dark moments in her life.

After Harry's birth, both James and Lily had decided that one child was just fine. There was a war going on, and introducing more young, innocent and more to the point, defenceless, humans was not going to help the effort. One child, they had both decided, was more than enough.

But then Lily had found out she was pregnant again, and although they had not known at the beginning the 'child' would be 'children' they had still been reluctant to let the pregnancy go ahead.

But Lily, now the proud mother of two of the most intelligent students in Hogwarts, was happy that they had not gone ahead with the planned abortion.

Her hand drifted to her stomach as she thought of children, wondering for the hundredth time how Harry had been able to see that, once again, she was bearing a child. She was only six weeks pregnant, and unless you were really looking, it was almost impossible to tell that soon there would be another addition to the Potter household.

It was so early on, in fact, that neither Lily nor James had known whether the child would be a boy or a girl, they defiantly had not decided on names.

This left an even bigger question, which was still unanswered.

How had he known?

Harry Potter lay curled up in a tight little ball on a huge red chair in the Gryffindor common room.

Using one of the small red and gold cushions that had been sprawled out on the couch, for it was more of a couch than just a chair, for a pillow, he was looking into the roaring fire with something similar to dismay etched on his face by the dancing flames, his green eyes glazed as he envisioned something that was just beyond his reach.

The clock that showed the time struck midnight, it's gong like sound echoing around the room, informing him, and only him really, that the next day had become the present one.

But still Harry didn't move a single muscle, seemingly unaware of anything else but the bright forms of the orange flames.

And the clock kept on ticking, waiting for the next hour, and then the next.

A/N: Hello all! Wow! I went into such a frenzy over this when I had the best idea. Originally the character that Charlotte (Lily's baby) will end up being was going to be some random I employed cheaply, but no longer. Lotte is going to have a much bigger part, but you are so going to have to wait for me to tell you anything. A little clue though? Next chappie.

REVIEW!

Reviewers are wonderful and I thank you all so, so much for being kind enough to spare a moment to tell me what you think. It was great to sit down, turn on the laptop, and see that I had at least one person who found what I was writing even mildly interesting. Thankyou all, I won't answer comments, mainly because everything asked is either too important to say or hopefully has been solved in this chapter. Oh, by the way, sorry it's so short.

PLEASE REVIEW!

Like I said guys, reviewers make my day, which sure sounds pretty pathetic, I know, because every time I read the phrase in someone's author notes I sneer at the screen. But I'm discovering it's true, so thankyou and please don't forget to add your opinions and stuff.

PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW!!

Oh, also, if you want to give me a basic idea of who you think Harry should be paired with then feel free. I've got an idea, but I'm not sure that you lot will like it all that much as it's a bit odd. OC's will be coming soon, although not that many of them, if you'd prefer to wait. Thanks again.

PLEASE PLEASE, PLEASE REVIEW!!!!

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