A/N: Thanks for your response. I should have probably pointed out that this story's already finished – has been since almost two years ago – and it will be appearing online in more or less regular intervals. So, no worries about a Visionary-like year-long hiatus. There's five chapters plus Epilogue.
Enjoy.
x
Chapter Two: Cubs in Therapyx
With great trepidation, Alex knocked on Dr Anne Willowcrook's door and walked in. He was late, but he had woken up scarce two hours ago and if Jack hadn't asked him when he expected he would be home, he would have forgotten that he was supposed to be here an hour earlier than usually.
Outsider witness, indeed. With the three pairs of eyes glued to him the instance he appeared in the doorway, he felt like he was the one to be interrogated. Willowcrook quickly closed a folder she had been studying, put it into a drawer in her desk and locked it. Usually she would have left the key dangling there, but this time she put it into the inner pocket of her jacket. An excessive measure, but she did know Alex and how far his curiosity could drive him, too well.
"Hello, Doc," Alex said, and shrugged off his windbreaker. It was too hot, except that he did have a bad feeling about today, and the only thing that could assuage his bad feelings was an ace in his sleeve. So he was forced to stew in a windbreaker to assure that he did have the sleeve to keep said ace in.
"Hello, Alex! Grab a seat and we can start – we have been waiting for you." It was shade too tolerant to be a rebuke, measured perfectly to convey the Doctor's feelings in a way that didn't compromise her professional integrity or something.
Alex hung his windbreaker by the door but remained standing – the sofa was wide enough for three normal-sized men; however, he would have to sit in between Lupin and his charge (who was practically hugging the armrest in an effort to get as far away from the man as the setting allowed him), and that was a no. Fortunately, Lupin got a clue for once and stood – he made an attempt to touch Harry, who swiftly dodged the hand, and shook his head in exasperation.
"I'll be at Andromeda's," he said to boy, and turned away. "Thank you for your patience, Doctor. Good luck, Alex."
Harry the Cub shifted so that he wouldn't meet his guardian's eyes, even coincidentally, and the most interesting object in the office turned out to be not the potted abaca, not the artfully arranged books on the shelves behind Willowcrook, nor Willowcrook herself, but, predictably, Alex. Harry watched him appraisingly, far from eager to introduce himself, with the distinct vibe of someone who was present under duress.
"Hi," Alex said sitting down on Lupin's abandoned spot. His tone carried the wary disinterest that he imagined Harry felt.
Harry nodded.
The doctor's smile was tight around the lipstick-pinked edges. She laced her fingers together and rested her chin on her knuckles as Alex had seen her do uncountable times before. It was one of her rituals for calming down, similar to how counting to ten was for other people. Her bare foot (she had a tendency to toe off her heels whenever seated at her desk) tapped against the carpet and her eyes measured the distance between her two 'clients.'
"Let us start," she said with surprising vim. "Alex, meet Harry. This is his fourth session today, and hopefully we will see some progress."
'…for a change' Alex mentally added.
"Harry, meet Alex. He has been coming to therapy for more than a year, and while our start was also somewhat rocky, we have achieved some great successes along the way."
"Which is why he still needs therapy," Harry said.
Willowcrook closed her eyes for a moment and did very good at not rising to the challenge. If her last three meetings with the boy had gone like this, Alex could totally understand her frustration.
Alex decided to be helpful, and remarked: "I've got a lot of issues."
Harry raised his eyebrows at him. "So do I, but I'd rather work through them than pay a stranger to listen to me whinging."
Alex failed to stop a chuckle from escaping. While Harry was in some ways a quintessential teenager, he apparently did have a sarcastic sense of humour.
"Gentlemen," the Doctor spoke up before the conversation degenerated, "I realise that many of your problems are private and you might not feel comfortable talking about them in front of each other, but I believe it would be helpful if you could share some of your experiences-"
"Does he know?" Harry asked curtly.
Willowcrook seemed to understand the cryptic question. She shook her head, dislodging a few locks of hair. "No, unfortunately Alex does not have the necessary clearance."
That was quite a surprise, and Alex looked at his fellow patient (even though it was a politically incorrect label) with new interest. Since Anne Willowcrook did have the highest possible clearance someone in her profession could attain, she was well aware of Alex' job and many of the classified data that were missing from his file. She knew that he had access to many state secrets, thus her firm negative response rang warning bells.
"I am sure, however," she continued, "that we can get away with being a little vague. After all, Alex has also signed several Official Secrets Acts, if I'm not mistaken."
Alex tensed and surreptitiously checked that Smithers' gum was still in his pocket. Not only was Harry the Cub affiliated with the government, but he was now aware of Alex' similar affiliation. The boy wasn't MI6, of that Alex was reasonably certain, but he was becoming more mysterious by the minute.
"Sure. Whatever," the mystery man said, shrugging. At least he had released the armrest and was now seated normally, although he still seemed ready to spring from the sofa at a moment's notice.
"Marvellous," Willowcrook replied, not entirely masking the irony. "Harry, I would like you to tell us about what happened in May and how you feel about it, and then we will hear Alex' opinion, alright?"
The question was directed only at Harry, and if Alex was less mature or less sympathetic, he might have protested about being excluded from the decision-making. Luckily for the Doctor, he wasn't.
Harry rubbed his forehead and re-adjusted his glasses, contemplating. Eventually his shoulders sagged in resignation and he said: "I died. How do you think it makes me feel?"
Alex snorted. He fielded a glare from the (older?) boy and returned: "I died twice. Or so they told me."
"What?" Harry stared at him as though he had spontaneously grown another limb.
Dying wasn't that rare a thing. It happened often enough for there to be a handful of urban myths about it.
"Got… injured," Alex offered. "I died twice on the operating table."
Harry continued gaping at him for a few seconds and then burst into an uproarious, mirthful belly-laughter. It completely transformed him from the angsting teenager into a troubled young adult. "And I thought I was unique!" he exclaimed between chuckles. "That puts a new spin on defeating death!" Eventually his hilarity subsided and he was left with a little twisted smile, and even that faded away as he spoke: "It's not the same, though."
"How?" Alex inquired. As a matter of fact, he didn't remember anything about lights at the end of the tunnel (that was overshadowed by his experience of trying to out-gallop a real train in a very tangible tunnel), so he couldn't say he had experienced dying. He didn't even remember much from the time since he had been shot until he had lost consciousness – just a mixture of pain, fear and shock. It might have been cold, too, or that was just an impression of the memory… he didn't know.
Then Harry said: "I went in knowing I would die. I died willingly," and Alex came to the conclusion that they were comparing incomparable incidents.
"Do you wish to die, Harry?" Dr Willowcrook asked, tapping her lower lip with the rubber-end of a pencil. She seemed far better composed than she had been two minutes ago.
"As in 'are you suicidal'?" Harry paraphrased. "No. But when it was my life for his death, I thought it was worth it."
Alex shuddered. He might have been lucky in that he had never had the time to think through that kind of a decision. He got into a dead-end situation every once in a while, and the fact that he was still alive was nothing short of a miracle, but when it came to his bravery, he preferred to have an adrenaline high to decide for him.
"I understand," Alex said absently.
"No, you don't. You really don't." Harry told him, half-amused, half-exasperated. "Nobody does." There was the sullen teenager resurfacing again.
"On the contrary, Harry," Willowcrook objected. "I believe that Alex here could understand you better than anyone." With a glance from one to the other and back, she ignored the protocol and started pointing out their similarities: "You both tragically lost your parents at a very young age."
Alex sneered a little. Calling a premeditated murder – committed by his godfather, his father's best friend, and paid for by a criminal organisation that felt betrayed – tragic was more than 'a little vague.' Harry seemed to agree with the sentiment. Alex could just imagine a terrorist organisation sending a hired killer after his parents, too.
Willowcrook went on, undeterred by their expressions: "You both lived with your parent's sibling during your childhood, which in neither case could be called ideal."
Alex finally managed to blank his face. Mentioning Ian always got him into a quiet mood. He had never managed to decide if he would continue on cherishing the memory of his uncle, or if he would start resenting him post mortem, and eventually just concluded that it would be safest for him to simply not feel anything. He let the memories pass him like they didn't matter.
Harry's sneer remained; his hands were clenched into fists.
"You both have been ruthlessly exploited by the government."
Alex said nothing. That wasn't an accusation he could admit to.
Harry leant forwards and met Willowcrook's eyes. "I was a kid," he hissed. "They were adults. They created problems and expected me to solve them. Yeah, I was exploited. And what are you going to do about it, Doctor? Do you think talking about it will make it all better? Will you kiss my owies?"
Alex was – stunned. Then he chuckled, because the combination of surprise and harsh sarcasm made hilarity well inside of him and bubble to the surface.
Harry turned to him. Resentful eyes pinned Alex to the sofa, and he really wanted to stop laughing, even while his shoulders shook. He was making an enemy he didn't want or need, however, so he forced himself to calm down and take several deep breaths. It could always be explained away as hysteria.
Willowcrook replied seriously: "I want to help you come to terms with your anger to the point when you will not redirect it at those who are not at fault, Harry."
"The entire society is at fault, Doctor," Harry retorted. "They all knew what was expected of me, and they all though it was a splendid idea. Someone decided before I was born that I had to kill a madman, and since I was a year old they did everything to make it happen."
Alex could see that Doctor Willowcrook's idea was already working. It was hard to believe, but the mere presence of a fellow sufferer made Harry the Cub open up and actually start talking about his feelings, even if he phrased it as accusations.
"Taking it out on the madman didn't work?" Alex inquired. He usually felt better after he had thrown some villain off a cliff. Never mind that he mostly ended up black and blue or burnt or bleeding, and had to be hospitalised… Sometimes violence was the most effective solution, and often it made him feel better. He could recommend it.
"I didn't do anything," Harry said. "I stood there and let him kill me." He hid his face in his forearms, presumably either trying to stave off tears, or hiding them.
"Why?" Willowcrook asked feebly.
Alex began to suspect that she was personally entangled in Harry's story; otherwise even the particulars shouldn't have made her lose her cool (she barely batted an eye at most of Alex' particulars).
Harry straightened. He was pale, and for the second time in their acquaintance Alex felt like he was looking into a skewed mirror. "'cause there was no other way. Dumbledore trained me to sacrifice myself. He left instructions."
"And you obeyed?" Alex could truthfully say that if his orders ever went '…and you'll let him kill you' he would tell Blunt and Mrs Jones to go fuck themselves.
"I said you wouldn't understand," Harry said simply.
He was right. Alex didn't understand. But he grasped fairly well that as messed-up as Harry was, the people who had been responsible for him had been far worse.
"Why don't you try and explain, Harry?" Willowcrook prompted.
"Yeah, explain why I stood there and let him kill me while remaining sufficiently 'vague.' Hmm… Well, I had to die before him, because if I hadn't, then he would have come back to life. Sounds vague enough?" He sneered at the Doctor, who sighed and re-laced her fingers.
Alex tried to make sense of the metaphor, but nothing occurred to him. Apparently, the circumstances had been so specific that without Harry going into details nothing would make sense to anyone excluded… which supported his hypothesis that Willowcrook was involved in the story.
"Let us just say that it was necessary and there was no other way," the Doctor said.
"Because that makes much sense," Alex muttered.
Harry heard him, but apart from a choked-on snort he didn't react.
"So," Harry said mockingly, "I died and came back to life, and now people think I am Jesus' younger brother and treat me like that. I get five marriage proposals a day, can't get through a committee or board meeting without someone passing me a near-pornographic note and I'm becoming an expert at dodging reporters and paparazzi. And I feel that everyone's gone crazy, and I'm really the last person on this bloody planet that needs a shrink."
Alex' investigative mind, once woken, refused to sink back into complacency. Harry apparently had a lot of publicity, and had to be a big celebrity to garner such interest from women because, objectively, his looks were fairly average and so far he had not exhibited any special charm. He spoke of a whole society that would recognise him, while Alex, whose job was intelligence gathering (and counterintelligence, but that was neither here nor there) had never even heard about him. It stunk. Badly.
"I imagine that such attention must be uncomfortable, but do you actually hate women?" Doctor Willowcrook asked.
Alex didn't immediately spot the relevance of her question, but she did have several degrees, while he was crossing his fingers to get through A-levels.
"No." Harry waved his hand, indeliberately brushing one of the abaca's leaves. "I hate Bellatrix. And I firmly believe that my feelings in this matter are justified."
"Why did you refuse to reestablish you relationship, then?" the Doctor jumped at a new line of questioning that Harry had left himself open for. "You said that you did love-"
"Yeah. I do. But Ginny thinks that I am the hero who saved the world, and therefore obligated to marry her, build her a house and a picket fence, buy her a dog and have half a dozen kids with her. At least. I'm eighteen, Doctor, and the furthest I've been from London is Northern Scotland. Yes, I've had my share of excitement, but for once I'd like to do something that doesn't involve torturing and killing people."
"Excellent, Harry!" Willowcrook praised the rant.
Alex was feeling truly out of his depth here. He had lost all his preconceptions and now found that he had no facts on which he could base his estimation of Harry. He tried to piece the puzzle together – an eighteen-year-old boy, antagonistic towards current guardian, hateful of society but personally at the very least civil to strangers, prone to fits of temper, survivor of a near-lethal injury, conditioned to die on order since early childhood… It didn't fit together. Either the boy was schizophrenic and had some heavy hallucinations, or all the pieces belonged to a much bigger puzzle, and Alex had yet to find an edge.
Since the Doctor acted as if it all made sense, he suspected the latter was closer to the truth.
"So you would like to travel?" Willowcrook asked, making a brief note into a spiral notebook in front of her. "Is there any country that specifically interests you?"
Harry, startled by the sudden change of topic, floundered. "I was thinking Australia? My friend's parents went there last year and they seemed to like it."
"I've been to Australia," Alex offered. He had been there more than once, but his first visit (if falling from the orbit into their piece of ocean could be called visiting) was by far the most memorable.
"What is it like?" Harry asked, simply civil rather than genuinely curious.
"Crappy," Alex said candidly. "The people are either perpetually happy despite daily mortal danger, or gleefully dispensing said mortal danger."
"I've heard there were lots of sheep," Harry deadpanned.
"Never saw any," Alex refuted. "There was a minefield, though. Yeah, and my godfather. I found out he murdered my parents."
Harry choked. He coughed a few times into his fist, eyes wide behind his glasses, and then turned to Alex. "Mine didn't. Murder my parents, I mean. The government said he did, though, and they put him in prison without a trial. He escaped after twelve years, but it messed him up. He died a while ago."
Alex, giving in to utter confusion, replied: "Mine died too. One of my… acquaintances shot him. Good riddance."
The good Doctor Willowcrook decided that she had let them have their morbid session long enough and took control again. "Is your desire to travel spurred by your wish to avoid your popularity?"
Harry's mood promptly plummeted. Alex had the niggling feeling that this was one of the rare cases when the client was right, and the psychotherapy really wasn't helping him. Alex was far better off than he had been before he had started visiting Willowcrook, but she seemed to make Harry hate her more every time she spoke up.
"Does everything in my life have to be about my fame?" Harry asked. "You know what? I've had enough for one day, and so did your 'outsider witness,' apparently. He's ready to start drooling onto his tie. So let's break this up." He stood and went for the exit.
Alex was confused, but not as much as to lose control of his bodily functions, so his tie (a birthday present from Sabina) was safe from harm. He still accepted the jibe in the spirit in which it was presented.
The Doctor was not as ready to free the boy from her clutches. She rose as well, dislodging the notebook and the pencil, which clattered on the floor past the edge of the carpet and rolled all the way to Alex' right shoe (Alex picked it up and pocketed it while her attention was diverted elsewhere). "Harry-"
"Bye, Doctor." Harry glanced over his shoulder. "Bye, Alex."
"Bye, Harry," Alex replied. He estimated his distance from the fallen notebook and came to the conclusion that it was too far for him to sneak it unnoticed. Willowcrook picked it up before the door shut behind Harry, and extended her hand to Alex in a mute request for the return of her writing implement.
She did know him too well.
"Leastways I won't be the first person that boy has made go grey," she said, sinking back into her seat and scribbling into the notebook.
"This was a waste of time," Alex said. He didn't really mind, except that he didn't take it well when information was being kept from him. "His story doesn't make any sense. It will keep me up all night. Can you give me a hint?"
Alex made it sound casual, but the Doctor took one glance at him and gave him a skeptical look. She shook her head. "Harry has been living in a completely isolated community with some rather archaic practices. Their people mostly are not on records."
"Remus Lupin is," Alex pointed out, mentally weighing how much trouble he could get in if he was caught breaking into the clinic in the middle of the night and perusing a certain file. Too much, probably, and then Mrs Jones would want to know why he did it. And even if he wasn't caught, if Harry's file suddenly disappeared, Willowcrook would know exactly who had taken it.
"Trust you to check," Willowcrook said, shaking her head. "He was probably born outside of the community and only joined it later."
"How do you know about that 'community'?" Alex inquired. It sounded awfully like Mafia, except it had already been described as having its own media and that was something criminals would have wanted to avoid. Still, conditioning a baby to die on order sounded criminal to him.
"Several of my relatives are a part of it," Willowcrook replied vaguely. "I cannot tell you more – they are protected by the crown, and there are consequences for betraying them."
"I see," Alex muttered. He didn't, but he would.
The doctor read his mind and scowled. "Don't do anything stupid, Alex. This is not worth getting mixed up with."
Alex had never been good at listening to warnings. Mostly it saved his life as well. "I'll be careful-"
"That won't help you this time," Willowcrook's voice became sharper, as did her eyes. Her lips tightened, forming a stern expression which Alex had only rarely glimpsed before. "I mean it, Alex, I know very well what you are capable of, and I am telling you that this is out of your league."
Alex blinked a few times, and then shrugged. "Sure, Doctor. I'll be a good little MI6 agent."
He could tell she didn't believe him, but she said nothing more on the topic, only ripped out the page from her notebook and put it into the inner pocket of her jacket with the key.
"What do you think of Harry, then?" she asked.
Alex decided to be honest. "I don't think you're helping him. He's a poster boy for PTSD, sure, but…" He shrugged.
"I was hoping you could help me help him. He spoke more today in ten minutes than in the three past sessions together."
Alex' left hand tapped a tattoo on the leather of the armrest, and he tilted his head to the side. Helping a shrink interrogate her patient? He had accepted it on experimental basis, but he had naively thought that it might help him, as well. And while there were startling similarities in Harry's and his history, their outlooks and characters were fundamentally different.
"I don't think I'd like to listen to anyone's whinging, especially not if I'm not paid for it," he said frankly.
"Alex?"
"That was a no, Doctor," he replied and stood. "I realise there's more than half an hour left, but I'm too tired and too annoyed to continue today. Sorry. I'll see you next week."
x
Sweating and cursing the day in five languages, Alex walked out of the clinic's shadow onto the sunlit footpath. He crossed the car park, and just outside the outer gates almost walked into Harry simply standing there and staring at the traffic.
"I would have thought you'd be in a hurry to get away from this place," Alex spoke.
Harry gave him a sideways glance and shrugged. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his neck, even though he was only wearing a shirt.
Alex thought he might boil in the windbreaker by the time he got home.
"Get away from this place – sure," Harry agreed. "Get to where I'm going next? Nuh-uh."
"Eloquent," Alex praised him.
Harry waved goodbye and walked away. Two houses later he turned into a side-alley.
Alex thought about the warning Willowcrook gave him and decided to do more preliminary research before he jumped head-first into trouble, so he did not follow.