CHAPTER 4

Harry stirred, and immediately hissed at the blossom of pain in his mangled shoulder. The lack of light behind his eyelids told him it was the dead of the night, and unusually warm. Balmy even. He cracked open his eyes slowly, wondering how he could have been out for so long.

He went stiff, realizing the last thing he remembered was landing unceremoniously in a puddle. Had he been captured then? Where the hell was he?

A brush of wind filled his nose with the scent of summer rain and deep forest, of ozone and something indefinable—like ash or sulfur. Like fireworks.

He opened his eyes the rest of the way, and immediately flinched in astonishment. The hand that had rested near his face—my hand, he thought with disbelief—was, instead of a thing of flesh and blood, a bright tangle of glowing orange-white. Like one of those diagrams of human veins, except rather than blood, he was filled with molten light.

He pushed back from the ground to sit up, alarms jangling in his brain.

It was not just his hands—his entire body was like some mad artist's rendering of a human done in fine neon tubing.

Ho-oly shit. He began to shake in earnest, and tried to calm himself down. Unfortunately, this tactic only ever worked because usually he could come up with any number of reasonable explanations for his predicament, and this time he simply could think of none.

What was one supposed to do with this sort of problem? Did wizards have a standard procedure when faced with the loss of one's skin?

Was this a spell? An illusion, or some bizarre transfiguration? Had they turned him in to some kind of freakish human glow-worm? He was not even substance; where there were no glowing lines, there was nothing. He was a framework of lights. His body's core, where he thought his heart usually rested, was almost blindingly bright, and he noticed he was actually casting light out into the darkness around him.

"I am a night light," he moaned, and his voice echoed strangely. He supposed not having a voice box, or a throat, or flesh, might cause that.

He moved to rake his fingers through his hair, only to have his hands phase through. "Waagh!" he cried. It felt like passing his fingers through thin streams of air, and it sent a thrill of horror down his spine.

It took a moment for him to recover from the shock and revulsion of sticking his own hands in to where his brain should have been, but he finally looked up to take in his surroundings.

It was like looking across a landscape of stars—there were odd glowing spots of different hues, and faintly glowing outlines of things. Some were brighter than others, some seemed to move, some were clustered close to each other, and in some stretches there were no lights at all. The landscape itself was very dark—deep indigo peaks and valleys cloaked with the shadowy shapes of forest, lumps like towers of rock, and sheer cliffs and massive mountains in the far distance, all beneath a sky that was blacker than any true night. When he looked up at it, it was as if he were actually looking down, into a murky abyss that no light could ever reach.

Flat sheets of glowing pale blue seemed to pool in the distance here and there, and he happened to be sitting very near one.

Creeping closer over the dark blue-black shapes of thick vegetation, Harry leaned over the glowing surface, and poked it with one insubstantial finger. Ripples formed, and he realized it was water. Or, he reflected upon further consideration, something very similar. It was a little more viscous than water, and when he sliced his hand through it, it seemed to let even more light out.

Utterly baffled, Harry looked around again. A little stick of crimson light half hidden in the brush captured his attention, and he picked it up. It felt very familiar, and with a start, he recognized it as his wand.

Blinking, he hesitantly theorized that the glowing shapes in this foreign landscape must be items—or creatures—of magic. The pool he sat next to was very similar in size to the rain puddle he had fallen into. That odd shape in the darkness a few meters off looked a lot like a fallen tree.

A fluttering anxiety filled his stomach. Had he trapped himself in some crazy vision where everything was backward and strange? Where matter was replaced by shadows and light? Was he dead? Was this what ghosts saw of the real world? His heart began to beat faster as he flashed through a hundred theories.

He noticed faint splashes of colors and shapes on the ground close to, and beyond, the fallen tree, and his gut recognized them as the spells that had been cast as he ran. The little white spatters around him made him look at his shoulder, and sure enough, he seemed to be leaking globs of light.

Maybe he wasn't dead, then. Maybe he was just going crazy. He glanced up again and noticed, near the fallen tree, three shining globes hovered around a fourth, which was sputtering like a candle that had reached the end of its wick. Harry felt a chill.

Was that… were those…?

Harry found himself suddenly unwilling to wait and see what would happen. Maybe the four wizards who were chasing him knew what had happened to him, and were somehow performing the same spell on one of their own, to catch him in this…world, or whatever it was. He lurched to his feet, pushing through the thick underbrush, and by the light of his own glowing veins, gave the wizards a wide berth and found his way back to where he thought Privet Drive should be.

It was hard to tell if he was going the right way, since the landscape didn't really correlate to the real world. Trees and bracken seemed to be in abundance, but where he thought there should be buildings or streets, there were instead mounds of stone and stretches of grass. Except in the near distance, he caught sight of one glowing outline of a house, and he knew it was Number 4. The magical wards on the place made it light up like it was Christmas at the Schaefers' (Mr. and Mrs. Across-the-Street who won the neighborhood lighting decoration contest every year, to Aunt Petunia's chagrin). Thinking of the Dursleys helped ground him a little. He wondered where they were. Had they come home to their destroyed living room yet?

He passed by more of the pale blue puddles on his way, but none of them were very large. In fact, he estimated they might be counterparts to the bits of rainwater that had collected in ditches and around drainage pipes in the real world.

Or, well, the realer world. He still wasn't sure what this was, exactly.

The warm wind rarely slackened as he walked, but when it did, he could hear many faint and distant sounds. People talking, whispering, or creatures howling, moving through the twilight landscape. Some of them sounded like they came through a muffled curtain, while others seemed to be simply very far away, voices carried on the breeze. Once or twice he saw tiny creatures in the vegetation—beautiful little things of delicate lines in carefully arranged hues. Like tropical insects, tiny birds, and things that defied his description, all made of neon lights.

He wondered if this were all his imagination. If it was, he was impressed with himself. A little bit worried, as well, but mostly impressed.

He arrived at the front walk of Number 4, noting the shining barriers around the property, layered up over the doors and windows, and especially around what he recognized to be his room. He could also see the remnants of his battle in the living room—though he'd repaired most of what he'd broken, the magic left scars, like afterimages burned in a retina.

Mrs. Figg's house, a short distance away, had its own faint outlines, but they were very dim compared to Number 4. It was easier to see it by the scattered little pricks of color that were probably magical objects, and the greenish glow of what he guessed was the fireplace, hooked up to the Floo network.

He looked around at the dark landscape, and the spots and clusters of lights like earth-bound nebulas. How was he supposed to reverse this? A niggling idea in the back of his mind made him glance about for a puddle.

He noticed an elevated pool that must have been the birdbath in Mrs. Figg's backyard. Several little yellow lights perched around the edge. He decided they were probably birds. Did every living thing have a glowing core like that? He wondered why he wasn't a simple spot of light, instead of this ghastly array of glowing cords.

He made his way purposefully toward the birdbath, although in this world it rested in a rough pillar of dark stone. The little yellow orbs stirred slightly at his approach, as if they could sense him coming. Maybe he was actually still walking around in his real body, he thought with a jolt. But then he discarded the idea; he had effectively walked through dozens of houses already.

Taking a deep breath, he plunged his arm into the pale blue liquid, and the yellow orbs scattered in a frenzy. He could actually feel wind and splashes on his hand, and the beating of wings. The dark world around him blurred, and the whisperings momentarily became a dull buzz.

Hastily he pulled his hand back out, feeling disturbed and thinking he'd rather not have Arabella look out the back window and see a disembodied arm sticking out of her birdbath.

He knew a moment of dizzy disorientation when he tried to wrap his mind around the idea that this whole world was completely upside down to the other. If down was up, and up was down, was he looking up at the ground, and down into the sky? For a second he stumbled a bit, imaging falling into the inky darkness of that endless abyss above—below?—him. What if he lost his grip on the ground, and just fell up and up—?

Get a hold of yourself, Potter, he thought, giving himself a mental slap. There was no point in getting all existential. For practical purposes, gravity still worked. He frowned. At least, so far.

He considered the birdbath again. The wind picked up, carrying a slight chill. Was it as simple as that? Could he just jump in, and come out the other side? It seemed too easy.

The chill deepened. The fact that it felt familiar, in a place so completely unfamiliar, made his thoughts grind to a halt as his hackles rose.

He spun around, just in time to see a bank of dark shapes bearing down out of the night. A blast of winter-cold air rolled before them, and the feeling of sheer, frenzied hunger that slammed into him was palpable.

They were huge, terrifyingly fast, and their tattered robes whipped about them in an evil, frigid wind.

Dementors? He was utterly stunned, grasping for reason. They were unlike any Dementor he'd ever faced. They were not slow and drifting, mindless or wandering. The first wave of despair crashed into him like a physical thing, and this time he could see the life being sucked out of him as they rushed in.

He didn't even stop to wonder if his magic would work here. He whipped up the bar of light that was his wand.

For a terrible second he struggled. He thought of the word 'happy' and dredged up image after image of things and times that he had come to associate with Sirius. He almost staggered under the crushing heartache, but conjured up an image of the DA— the happiness of teaching them and the pride he felt when they did well—and desperately shouted, "Expecto Patronum!"

To his utter shock, instead of the silver apparition he'd expected, the shape that exploded from his wand was towering and solid. The mighty stag made flesh and blood, a twelve-foot tall beast of sinew and strength that thundered on flashing hooves toward the inky shapes. Harry took one moment to watch the giant stag rip into the Dementors with thrashing antlers, before whirling toward the glowing birdbath.

In that split second before he turned away, he saw something else—something big and predatory—tear into the black creatures from behind, but it was too quick, and he couldn't tell what it was.

Without another thought, he took a running leap, and dove in headfirst.

Light and dark flashed briefly through his tightly shut eyelids, as water or wind buffeted him on all sides. It was like being squeezed through river rapids. It roared in his ears and spun him around, and light flashed blindingly behind his eyes.

And then with a sucking pop, like the feeling of getting the water out of his ears, he was flying through the air. He managed to tuck his head and land sharply on the back of his shoulders before tumbling into the grass.

He coughed and panted hard, blinking and staring up at a blessedly sunny blue sky. He hurriedly lifted his arms, and sure enough they were covered in skin. His wand was made of wood, and his clothes were made of cloth. He gave a loud whoop for joy from where he lay flat on his back.

He didn't even mind anymore that his shoulder was still dislocated, or that he was bleeding everywhere, or that he seemed to be covered in some kind of faintly phosphorescent gunk. The Dementors were trapped on the other side, and he was alive!

He lay there in Mrs. Figg's backyard for several more minutes, simply enjoying the sun on his face and the sounds of the neighborhood—squealing kids, purring cars, a lawnmower that wouldn't start, and bugs whirring around in the slightly overgrown grass.

Finally rolling to his feet, in a mind for a good hot shower, he hesitated a moment and stepped back over to the birdbath. It was an unassuming little thing, hardly wide at all. Gingerly, he poked a finger in, and touched the bottom. It was barely two inches deep, and certainly not deep enough to be a portal to the underworld, or whatever that place had been. Taking a deep breath, he tried again, holding in his mind a need for escape, a way out. He watched carefully as his finger neared the bottom of the bath, and grit his teeth as slowly, very slowly, the white plaster stretched away from him. It pulled away around his hand, like a sinkhole in the earth, widening and deepening impossibly as he watched.

His nerve failed him, and he snatched his hand out. The birdbath snapped back to normal. Harry stared at it, before beginning to curse under his breath. As if his life were not already strange and complicated enough. Maybe Hermione knew something about it. That thought reminded him of his other problem—the one that seemed more and more likely to end with him setting his bed on fire while he slept.

He turned and walked back to the Dursleys, completely ignoring the destruction on the first floor. Before he would consider fixing anything, talking to anyone, or even thinking about all the problems that clamored for his attention, he was going to take a long shower.

When he headed downstairs, freshly cleaned and wearing a pair of pajama pants along with a big pad of gauze over his shoulder, it was to find his house full of people. He froze at the top of the top of the stairwell, identifying the milling chaos as magical folk, and likely Ministry officials. They seemed to been cordoning off areas, investigating the destruction with unfamiliar instruments, chatting in little groups and clutching bits of parchment. Owls flew in and out, and if Harry hadn't known any better, he would have thought this was some kind of homicide investigation. He wondered if anyone had managed to find the Dumbledore-copy hidden under the stairs, and had to suppress a smirk at the idea that the old man might still be there, waiting with bated breath while half the Ministry flurried around outside.

He stepped gingerly down the stairs, careful not to jostle his bad arm, and, when no one seemed to have the time to notice him, called out, "What's going on?"

Everyone nearby froze, jaws dropping, and slowly the entire house went quiet as conversations died out and more people turned or moved to stare at him. A clipboard slipped and hit the floor somewhere nearby.

"Harry!" a familiar voice gasped in astonishment. Harry had just a moment to identify the speaker as Professor Dumbledore, who had appeared at the doorway to the kitchen, before the room exploded with noise. People pressed forward, demanding to know where he'd been, who he'd been fighting, what had happened.

Harry backed up one step, startled, and the Headmaster pressed through the rather unyielding crowd. "Harry, my boy," Dumbledore said when he'd reached him, and Harry was slightly shocked at the profound relief in the old man's voice. "You gave us all quite a scare."

Harry found himself taken up in a quick hug, and hardly knew how to react except to choke on the pain in his shoulder, before the Headmaster stepped back and took in his condition. "Ah, I do apologize, Harry, that was careless of me." With a piercing blue gaze, he asked, "Aside from the shoulder, are you quite all right?"

Harry nodded, torn between being immensely relieved to see the real Dumbledore, and feeling bitter in the knowledge that the man's concern was born from the Prophecy, rather than any real attachment to Harry.

"Very good," the old wizard said with a small smile. The crowd of officials and Aurors had quieted down, and Dumbledore patted him on the back. "We can sort this all out after you've had some medical attention. Poppy will be able to more thoroughly fix you up, I should think. St. Mungo's is not the place for you at the moment."

Several protestations went up as Dumbledore escorted Harry toward the front door. He caught sight of Tonks, who gave him a wink and a salute before he shuffled out. Once on the doorstep, he suddenly realized he was ill prepared to make a trip anywhere, since he had nothing but his pajama pants, his boxers, and his wand, but Dumbledore seemed to anticipate his thoughts. "I will have someone retrieve your things and send them over to the school after you're settled in."

Harry nodded, and then frowned in surprise. "I'm going to be staying there?"

Dumbledore looked tired. "Your home has been compromised, and your relatives are missing." Harry stiffened at this. The Dursleys were missing? Dumbledore went on, his voice laced with sympathy. "Until we discover the source of this deception, Hogwarts is the safest place for you, Harry."

"What about Grimmauld Place?" he asked, and then immediately regretted it. He wanted no part of that house.

"Ah," Dumbledore said, looking down at him sadly. "I had meant to discuss this with you this week. Sirius left a will—" Harry flinched at this, and the Headmaster paused at his expression, before continuing. "Until it is processed through the proper channels, and all parties are notified, we don't know how safe that location is. We—the Order, that is—are reasonably certain the house and property therein will have been left to either Remus, or yourself, but…" He lifted a hand and let it fall.

Harry grit his teeth, staring at the ground. They had paused just outside the anti-Apparation wards. "Who was it?" he asked quietly.

"We don't know yet," Dumbledore informed him, eyes taking on a steely glint as he looked away. Harry blinked to see how very angry the old man was. "He was using a device called a Polyjuice drip, which allowed him to continuously pump the potion into his bloodstream. He has only been withdrawn for little more than an hour." He took a breath through his long, crooked nose, as if to calm himself.

"Why are you so mad about this, Professor?" Harry asked him carefully.

Dumbledore looked at him, and gave him a weary smile. "We'll have time to discuss this further, if you wish, another time. For now, it would be best to get you patched up before you fall down, I think."

Harry grimaced slightly, unhappy with the old man's answer, but thinking it better not to press the issue. Dumbledore took him by the elbow, and they disapparated.

They appeared in Hogsmeade with a crack, and Harry had to flex his jaw to clear out his ears, before continuing the conversation. "So Tonks got my owl? You guys found the note?"

"Yes," Dumbledore replied pleasantly as they resumed walking. "Ms. Tonks was quite impressed with you, I might add."

Harry felt a flush of pride.

"I feel I must also extend congratulations, Harry. The impression I received from the rather disheveled state of your house leads me to conclude you overcame quite the skilled opponent."

Harry ducked his head, slightly embarrassed now.

"That you managed to come out nearly unscathed is remarkable, given the structural damage to the living room." Dumbledore's gaze was roving over the village, and so he did not see the silent struggle play over Harry's face. "How did you manage to avoid being smashed, if you don't mind my asking?"

Harry cleared his throat, considered setting the story straight, and then thought better of it. "Lucky, I guess."

Dumbledore just chuckled, and they continued on in companionable silence. The sun was low in the sky, and as they were nearing the castle gates, Hedwig appeared overhead. She swooped down as if to land on Harry's shoulder, and he smiled to see her, silently praising her as the best and bravest owl there ever was.

They both seemed to realize at the same moment that Hedwig landing on Harry's bare shoulder was a bad idea. She screeched loudly and banked sideways, he gave a shout and tried to dodge, and the result was that the big white owl collided with his face, and he went down in a flurry of flailing limbs.

All the way up to Madame Pomphrey's hospital wing, Dumbledore kept dissolving into chuckles, and by the time the Headmaster had to take his leave, Harry was thoroughly glad to see him go.

Pomfrey insisted he spend the night in the hospital wing, and after a plate of sandwiches, and what was probably a bit too much painkiller potion, he amused himself for nearly an hour trying to reach through a glass of water to the Other Side. As he didn't really plan on going back—ever—it was a rather useless skill. But he was bored, and it was pretty brilliant to stick his entire arm in a tiny glass. When he got really bored, he set two glasses on the bedside table and reached both arms in, nearly up to his shoulders, and wished someone else had been there to see him looking completely armless.

Although, when Pomfrey came in to check on him, he had to pull them out very quickly, lest she think he'd somehow managed to chop off both limbs right after she'd patched them up. They came out covered in goop again, but a quick 'scourgify' took care of it before she even noticed anything strange.

He fell asleep guffawing at the image of his arms as they must have appeared from the Other Side, neon orange appendages waving about in midair.