Chapter II-That Which Makes it Whole

St. Mungo's hospital-three days after the ministry incident

`The mind healers of the hospital had been having a hell of a time trying to assess the damage to the boy that the whole wizarding world owed a large life debt to. Destroying the Dark Lord with a wave of pure light summoned by magic; the last person known to do anything like that had been Merlin himself when he'd summoned lightening itself from the skies.

They had finally discovered that is wasn't just Harry Potter's mindscape that had been damaged during the possession. It seemed that the purpose in the possession had been to shatter the child's mind itself. As far as they could tell, the goal had been accomplished very well. The lead healer of the floor walked into his office and sat before his former year-mate; Poppy. She had volunteered to talk to the healers as Dumbledore's representative; with Minerva as a companion.

"Poppy, Deputy-Headmistress, I-I'm not sure how I can best explain what we've diagnosed. It's rather complicated," Healer Martin said. He had no doubt Poppy would, she had to know a bit more than just the basics of mind healing in order have her occupation. However, to try and explain this to a transfiguration professor who didn't even know a lot about mind magic was what worried him. The usual stern matron gave an encouraging smile.

"Why not start with the basic concepts and then discuss how it relates to mind magic and Harry," she said before turning to Minerva. "I know you probably don't appreciate this, but if you want to understand what has happened to the dear lad you need to know these basics."

"I understand, please, continue healer Martin. I know how ignorant I am in this subject, if you must explain basic terms, do so," said the head of Gryffindor. She hated not knowing anything about this topic. She'd be reading up on it after this, without a doubt.

"Alright. First there is the mind, you know about that, however some people create what we in healing term mindscapes. These are places that organise the information in the mind; it's like creating a library of sorts inside your mind, a place where you have everything you'd ever read or been taught, even sensory information can be stored there, so you never forget anything. Occlumency uses mindscapes for defence, a place you know like the back of your hand but any other would be lost in—not to mention the traps, false doors and other defensive accessories you can add to your mindscape. Legimency tries to extract information from the mind; and the best mages at it are the ones that can navigate foreign mindscapes. The Dark Lord was known to just destroy a mindscape as an addition to whatever he was in your head for, understand so far?"

"Are you saying Harry Potter had a mindscape and the dark lord destroyed it?" Minerva asked as she nodded her understanding. Healer Martin shook his head.

"Young Harry does have a mindscape, they're created for all sorts of reasons, I could hazard a guess—based on his school healing file—as to what his was used for, and his was most likely constructed during childhood and it appears to be quite elaborate," Martin said. Poppy frowned.

"What do you mean by elaborate, mindscapes are just a room in one's mind, aren't they?" asked the matron. Minerva looked at her friend. So did Martin.

"Usually they are, Poppy. However, some people—for whatever reason—don't just construct a single room. They construct large pieces of architecture; organising their entire mind to fit within their mindscape. You normally see it in mages of immense power, it takes not just time and energy, but a lot of power and motivation to preform such a feat of making a mindscape of a single room. Elaborate mindscapes take many times more than such. Harry's, it appears, encompassed his entire mind. Nothing was left out. That's where this becomes tricky," Martin explained.

His entire mind was a mindscape? Does he really have such power? Poppy asked herself.

"What do you mean it becomes tricky? What did Voldemort do?" Minerva asked. She rarely used the name, finding it left a filthy aftertaste on her tongue. It showed how worried she was for the young lion that she uttered it.

"When the Dark lord started to damage Harry's mindscape, he wasn't just damaging the mindscape, he was damaging different parts of Harry's mind. A dark warlock known for his prowess in the mind arts; he had to have known what he was doing when he started destroying things inside of Harry's mindscape."

"So he has extensive damage?" Poppy asked.

"Yes," was all the healer said. Minerva furrowed her brow.

"Is it permanent? You can heal it, can't you?" asked the professor. Harry would pull through, the little lion always had before.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple. I told you before this is complicated. We've no idea what Harry Potter's mindscape is like, we don't know exactly what damage occurred nor its severity, and what's more important is that we've no way of healing the young man."

"Don't tell me that his…"

"Yes, Poppy, his central nervous portion was at the very least cut off from inside the mindscape. Harry Potter is stuck inside his mindscape and we've no way of getting to him. At this point, the only one who can heal the boy is himself—and he has no training. At most he may, may be able to reconnect himself to the outside world. However, this is a very unlikely possibility."

"So what? He'll die?" Minerva asked as her heart slowly froze as realisation led to overwhelming fear.

"His magic will sustain him for a while, we've no idea how long. We're currently trying to ascertain how large his magical core is; but the tests all require response from the patient and Harry Potter is not able to respond. At best we can guess it's abnormally large and he may have years, or months. We—we just don't know. I'm sorry," Martin said. He'd been through this often with cases where they had little to no hope, where he had to tell the loved ones they needed to brace for the worst. That it could last a lifetime, or none at all.

The two witches across from him sat still, but their responses were very different. Poppy had done her practical training in the hospital. She'd done this routine far more than she'd ever had wanted to. She used her own experience from similar talks to help her keep her face calm and bland. Minerva, much to Poppy's surprise, started to silently cry. The strong Scotswoman she'd known for decades broke down. There was only one thing the two women would talk of for the rest of the day: what would they say?

Mind Castle-same day

Harry walked down to the black lake's shore. Over the past day or so he'd surveyed his entire mind castle and the grounds around it. Voldemort and his blasted basilisk had caused a lot of damage; and Harry didn't need Hermione to tell him exactly how bad the boded for him. Harry breathed out a sigh, his "air" visible in the chill. His mind had always been the perfect temperature before, but now it was cold from his inability to feel warmth.

The sky was black as the darkest night, no stars and no moon. Harry's light came from the orb he'd conjured that floated behind him. He had candles in the castle, but he really didn't want to use them. So he'd conjured the orb. Harry knew that the destruction was very bad, the fyre had destroyed a lot of very very important places in the castle, and his flames had only increased the damage. Harry knew that if he didn't figure out how to fix this whole mess he'd die. It would take him a very long time, but time flowed differently and what was a week for him could very well be a month for everyone on the other side.

Harry didn't know what to do or where to begin. So he headed towards the lake. On the other side he'd always found comfort in the dark waters and the solitude of the forest. As Harry approached the lake he noticed the water was lighter and clearer than it usually was. Not by much, but enough to be rather odd in his opinion.

What does it matter? I've got bigger problems to solve than why the lake has changed its hue, Harry told himself. He was about to dismiss the oddity when he experienced another. Somewhere on the other side of the lake a violin was being played. The melody was lovely but unfamiliar to the young warlock. He waded in, his bare feet—he honestly hated shoes and never wore them whilst in his castle—were rough as a hobbit's and didn't feel the sharp rocks in the lakebed. He didn't even notice his wool trousers becoming wet around the calves. He stood knee deep in the water when the violin stopped.

Harry was now very curious, he'd never heard the violin before and he had no idea why he had. It could be another person, but this was Harry's mind and no one else was here—he'd have felt it if they had been. Harry looked out into the thick darkness of the uncharted portion of his mind. After a few moments Harry returned to the shore and picked up a thin, pointed stick laying on the ground. He began to draw lines and circles in the sand.

Harry allowed himself to wander as he drew. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad, to stay here for the rest of my days… I wouldn't have to conform to the person they want me to be, I wouldn't have to be the boy-who-lived anymore. I'm not able to get rid of Voldemort, I had to use accidental magic and luck to save myself, so how could I possibly save anyone else?… I'd be useless if I went back, more useless than I was at the ministry, Harry silently rambled.

He clearly remembered the events of the ministry, the moments of danger he'd put his friends in by being reckless, Sirius's death by his stupidity, the uselessness he'd had felt fighting Voldemort when he compared the duel with that of Dumbledore—who couldn't even look at him anymore he was so useless. So pathetic. Everything had changed with Cedric's death; he'd shown the world how useless he was with the death of one of his few true friends… HE couldn't save anyone. Why they all thought he was special was unknown to him. Maybe it was because of my scar, the connection with Voldemort? That's gone now, destroyed by my purging flames, Harry thought as he doodled.

"It's better that I can't get back, that I'll die here," he whispered to himself dropping the stick into the water. The ebb and flow of the lake water rubbing away the great palace he'd doodled. Harry sat on the ground a little ways from the shoreline, and allowed himself to recline.

I refuse to try. If others would think it as a surrender , then they can. I don't give one damn, he thought. He'd lie here on the shore side until his body drew its last breathe on the other side. He closed his eyes in release. He'd miss Ron and Hermione, though. Out of everyone, he felt the worst for not trying for them…but, he was tired. He was tired of the fickle people who'd pinned their responsibility on a boy and then shamed him when he failed to live up to their demands, he was tired of being this Harry and that Harry and boy, freak, warlock, boy-who-lived, the golden boy of Gryffindor, Dumbledore's boy, Potter brat, and anyone that wasn't just Harry.

Who was Harry, though? He himself didn't know. He hadn't even known his own name until his first day of school; until that point he'd been either "you" or "the boy". He'd grown up with no name, no identity, and no purpose but to serve. Hogwarts wasn't really any different: it just had different rules, duties and expectations of who he was than the Dursleys. He'd never had an opportunity to find out who he was, only what he wasn't and what everyone wanted him to be. What he was, his entire purpose revolved around being a tool, a means to an end for everyone else.

Not to say Harry didn't have a personality, just that everything that made him up, his interests and morals and desires revolved around serving a greater purpose; of being a piece to a grander puzzle. The only thing that had made him a puzzle piece in the war against Voldemort was a night where he'd used his magic to fulfil his mother's last wish—for him to live—and the strange connection that had resulted from it. That was gone, destroyed beyond retrieval, only ash remained of the basilisk.

I'm not sorry, Ron, Hermione. I tried my best, I did what I could; but I just can't cut it. I can't save anyone, I can't even save myself. I never could, because…

"…I'm not a whole person," Harry whispered into the chilling air by the lake. He didn't feel complete, some part of him was missing; and until he was completed he was useless. But I'm stuck here now, and I've been looking for that missing piece since I noticed I wasn't whole. I couldn't find it, and I can't work without it, so here I am. Stuck until I die… That's alright. It's not like any of them truly understood how I felt, not even Ron and Hermione, Harry thought with a small amount of grief. He'd told Cedric once, towards the end of the Tournament, how even when he was with his friends he felt lonely. The way he had always felt as a small child. Cedric had told him he didn't doubt it.

"I can't imagine how lonely it is to be the most powerful person around," Cedric had told him. Harry still only partly understood what Cedric had meant, he had more magic than even Dumbledore, he could feel it, but he had no way of controlling it. Still, it was raw power at best, and Harry thought that those who could control their raw magic were far more powerful. He felt tears prickle in his eyes as he remembered his dear friend—the only one to ever get close enough to understanding how Harry felt.

"What did you do to my lake?" came a deep, smooth voice. It sounded like the lake personified, but Harry knew it wasn't. Harry scrambled to his feet. His orb flaring at the increase of wariness its conjuror exueded.

Before Harry, was a boat that was reminiscent of the enchanted boats used for first years. This one was more elegant, however, and in it stood a man who looked very much the way Harry suspected he would when he was full grown. Certainly he'd never reach the height of this lithe man, and his eyes glowed green rather than being a clear turquoise, but they had the same messy dark curls and the same cream complextion. The resemblance was striking to both of them, but they were still weary of the other.

"Your lake? Don't be ridiculous, the lake is my subconscious. An uncharted area of my mind," Harry said. He was always straightforward in his explanations to others. The man regarded him.

"As it is mine, so you're an invader," said the man. Harry scoffed, the man narrowed his eyes. Harry gave a crooked grin and spread his arms to indicate the area around him.

"Does it look like I'm invading? I was just invaded myself, and you're the one whose travelled here in a boat. I didn't invade you, it's the other way around," Harry said. The man stepped out of the boat with grace and landed on the shore. He's a muggle, so how can he—

"I came to investigate the strange light on this side of my lake, which has been unnaturally tampered with. Although, it appears that your mind… Castle has been pillaged by someone," said the man as he stepped closer to the glowing orb.

"Most definitely a muggle," Harry murmured. Pillaged was rather accurate a term for the damage. However, a mage would have noted that most of the damage contained Harry's magical aura; they'd have used magical terminology, asked who he'd fought. The man's attention snapped back to him.

"What did you just call me?" the man asked in pure curiosity. He'd never heard that term before and it hadn't sounded derogatory, more like the boy had been identifying a breed of dog. Harry tensed, he hadn't meant to say that out loud. Oh, who gives a damn. I'm going to die here, and if he crossed our subconciouses than he's obviously not a normal muggle, Harry thought and threw caution to the wind.

"I said muggle. It means non-magical person; and I suggest you don't get too close to the light. It's pure magic and will cause a lot of pain if you make it uncomfortable," Harry said dismissively. He should head back to the castle and see what he could do to clean the place up. He may be ready to die in his head; but he'd be damned if he gave Aunt Petunia the satisfaction of dying in a filthy mind; ruins be damned. He turned and started walking up the hill, the orb following him.

"Magic? It does exsist? Wait! Is that how we're connected? Hey, I need more data if I'm supposed to properly deduce!" exclaimed the man who was now bounding up the hill after him. Harry turned.

"I've no idea why we're connected. It's not normal, even for mind magic… I suppose we could talk, I'll need your name. I'm Harry Potter," he said and held out a hand. He'd learned long ago to just adapt to strange situations. The man took his hand and shook it.

"Sherlock Holmes. Now, what's mind magic?"