A/N: Thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed so far. Crazed Marmet, I think I'm going to stick with a genuine "Harry going crazy" story, simply because I've never seen one done before. Again, if anybody has any recommendations, let me know.
Actually, Wytil, I only know what I read in a really sad book called Becoming Anna, which is about mental facilities and was written in 2000. I'm glad things have changed, but for the sake of the story, I'm pretending St. Brutus' is stuck in the "old days".
Disclaimer: Harry Potter and his world belong to JK Rowling.
Conversations With Harry
"And what's this, Harry?"
Harry looked up at Dumbledore. "It's pictures," he said. "Pictures of my parents, of me as a baby, their friends …"
"I see." But Dumbledore did not appear very much interested.
Harry wondered, not for the first time that week, why he was sharing all this with Dumbledore. After all, this man had no recollection of the wizarding world whatsoever, or so he maintained.
But doubts still lingered in his mind. What if Dumbledore was just pretending to have lost his mind so Harry would tell him what he felt?
What if this was just a psychologist trick, like all those others his headmaster was so fond of?
What if Dumbledore was lying to him?
What if he had called Hermione beforehand and told her to pretend not to recognize him?
What if Dumbledore was working with Voldemort?
Harry looked into the man's clear blue eyes as horror rose like bile in his throat.
"Harry?"
Even the sound of the old man's calming, patient voice both infuriated and terrified him at the same time.
'If we can't trust Dumbledore, we can't trust anyone.'
Hermione had said those words long ago. But, said a small voice in the back of his mind, this wasn't the same Dumbledore he had known; it wasn't the same Hermione either. Harry wondered absently whether Ron was the same as he had always been, or whether he had changed as well.
"Harry? This is such an interesting book. Wherever did you get it?"
Harry took in every feature of the old man's face. He felt like he would trust this man anyway, even if he wasn't really the Dumbledore he had always known.
Dumbledore was the first person this summer to actually show some interest in what he had to say.
"Hagrid gave it to me," he finally answered. "At the end of my first year, when I was in the Hospital Wing. He made it himself, sent away for pictures of my Mum and Dad because-"
Ogden Rami watched as the almost-seventeen-year-old squirmed in front of him. Rami shifted his gaze down to the homemade photo album with sadness.
He didn't know how Harry viewed the book; perhaps leather-bound, with gilded edges. But … this album …
It wasn't much of an album, really. Just several sheets of computer paper folder in half down the middle, stapled on the crease. On each page of the "book" were drawings, a child's drawings. Featured often was a stick figure with long, red hair and another stick figure with black hair drawn on with marker that was sticking out in all directions.
Rami looked down at Harry again. He realized that the boy had never finished his sentence.
"He sent away for the pictures because …?" Rami prompted.
"Because I didn't have any," whispered Harry, perched tenderly on the edge of his seat, as though fearing rebuke.
"And what might this be?" Dumbledore's tone was light, casual. He was not going to get in any trouble. So Harry told him.
"That's my dad's old Invisibility Cloak," he explained proudly, fingering the cloak on his lap. "It makes you invisible when you put it on. Ron and Hermione and I snuck off lots of times underneath it."
Rami shook his head and shut his eyes while Harry rambled on about the "Invisibility Cloak". He could almost see the cloak taking shape before his eyes; it was silver in color, very long, made of fluid material.
This wondrous Invisibility Cloak could not contrast more with what was really sitting, folded neatly, on Harry's lap. It was a baby blanket, faded blue with little yellow bunnies, and barely larger than the teen's torso.
Rami recalled with sadness the night a few years ago when he had been awoken in the early hours of the morning by a loud crash coming from the basement of St. Brutus'. He had rushed downstairs and into the kitchen. A box full of pots and pans had fallen to the floor. There was little damage done, but what had worried Rami the most was that the child the child who had caused the commotion – Harry – had not tried to run or even to hide himself; he had stood right in the middle of the room with his little blanket thrown over his head.
He'd seemed surprised when he'd been caught.
Rami knew from long, long conversations with Harry's aunt, that the blanket was Harry's only connection to the past. And what a past it was!
James and Lydia Potter had not been expecting a child. According to their friends, Lydia had not been pleased to learn that she was expected to quit drinking and smoking, at least while she was pregnant. Harry had been born July 31, and by the following day, the couple had started drinking again. The family had lived on and off welfare – mostly on – for Harry's first fifteen months. James had tried to hold a steady job, but none of them had ever worked out.
On Halloween 1981, James and Lydia had taken Harry out to a party hosted by one of their friends, Robert Lucas. Peter Petrovitch and Sam Black had also attended. The party had lasted past midnight, and all the guests had then proceeded to drive home – drunk.
The Potters' car had been hit by another drunk driver. The elder two were killed impact. Harry had escaped with a curiously shaped scar and minor head injuries.
Soon, it became clear that the drunk driver was none other than Sam Black – James' best friend. Although he was unharmed, Black was sentenced to four years in prison, while Harry was sent to live with his aunt and uncle.
Rami pulled himself out of the past and struggled to pay attention to what Harry was saying.
"… Aunt Petunia said they got killed in a car crash, but I know better," he said proudly. "They died protecting me."
"Did they now?" Rami remarked, hoping Harry wouldn't detect the pain in his voice. But he did nothing to dispel that myth.
