A/N: Actually, yes, I do know that Beauty in the Beast was in theaters November '91, at least in the USA (where all my info comes from) and so it wouldn't be there in October of '93, but I honestly don't care. Uh-oh. Shucks to be you, history fanatic. =P Besides, I didn't want to have them watch Jurassic Park and then deal with Paradise freaking out about it.

Chapter 16

Unscheduled Vacation… Not

He woke and didn't know where he was. The ceiling was white. The walls were blue. There was another twin bed not far from him with a slightly snoring lump curled into the paler blue comforters. Oh. Right. Home: Ursa-upon-Heavens, the magical house in the middle of nowhere. From the two windows in the opposite wall, Harry could tell it was not quite morning. The clock by his bed only confirmed that. It was 5:14. Harry climbed out of bed and through a dress robe on over his shoulder. Paradise had crashed as soon as they'd arrived at the college, so Aurora had put her to bed while two Hogwarts elves situated their trunks. He'd had the forethought to pull out a set of robes in case he needed to wake up in the middle of the night.

Harry padded out of the little guest room and in to the main room. Ursa had five rooms, or so he'd heard. Two bed rooms, a living room, and then a joint kitchen and dining room area. Over the whole house, stretched an attic, but Harry hadn't seen that yet. He flicked on a soft lamp in the middle of the living room and picked up The Princess and the Goblin from the overcrowded table. Somehow, Aurora had brought it along. He curled into one of the comfortable chairs and read.

And read. And read. And read.

When he finished the book, neither Aurora nor Paradise was awake. But he was hungry. Harry moved into the kitchen. The clock said it was just after eight. The boy stared at the appliance-less kitchen and wondered where to even begin. "Um." A wooden spoon popped upright and pointed to a note stuck to the icebox. It was from Aurora, basically ordering him not to prepare any food until he knew his way around the kitchen. There was fruit in the icebox and he was free to go outside if he so choose.

Harry pried open the icebox and grabbed an apple. Then he headed outside. Aurora's garden was overrun and haphazard and probably nothing more than a plot of once organized weeds. He would have started weeding, but he couldn't tell flower from weed and there wasn't much he'd be able to do in a week. The sun was fully up, shining down on the world in a cheerful, happy way that belied Harry's mood. With no book to distract him, his mind kept slipping from thought to thought, wanting to examine the artificial memories, but not wanting to deal with horrid he thought it was.

Divination had only lived up to his prediction of it; he was glad he'd switched out of it so early on. Huh. Why on earth would he have consented to remain in the class? He was still struggling with the fact he'd just signed up for what Ron had signed up for without second thoughts.

But then that was before the dementors. That was before when he faced that fact that it was a dangerous world out there. He wanted to be prepared. Two owls winged their way towards him, visible only against the morning sun. Harry went back inside, but left the door open so the birds could fly straight inside. One of them was almost most certainly Hedwig, but he didn't recognize the other. He found a place to dispose of the apple core, and by then, Hedwig and the large, ruffled looking barn owl that followed her had landed on the table. They both held out their legs, so the barn owl wasn't for Paradise or Aurora.

Harry untied both letters and got water for the two owls. The barn took a long sip and took off immediately. Harry put Hedwig's letter aside and slipped open the letter. It was addressed to Mr. HJ Potter, Student, resident of Ursa-on-Heaven, in the Middle of Nowhere. That was really this place's address? His teacher needed more imagination. Still, the letter looked official.

Mr. H.J. Potter

I am unknown to you; I am one Daniel Jainsberg, Head Administrator at St. Mungo's Hospital for the Magical Ailment. Due to the circumstances surrounding Hogwarts' impromptu vacation, the staff at St. Mungo's have decided to hold a seminar for those students that our Mind Healers deemed worthy of instruction in healing arts no longer taught at Hogwarts. In this regard, I would like to extend to you the offer of attending a four hour session on Monday-Saturday, from 1pm to 5pm. Should you wish to attend, the enclosed quill is a portkey that will activate at 12:45pm to bring you to St. Mungo's. If you or your guardian have any questions, please feel free to firecall St. Mungo's administrative office.

If you so choose to attend, please bring appropriate note taking material for around an hour of note taking, bring a wand, and wear practical clothes.

Sincerely,

Daniel Jainsberg

Administrator

St. Mungo's Hospital for the Magical Ailment

"What's that?" Paradise mumbled, sleep still in her voice.

"An invitation to go to school over vacation," Harry said, with a grin.

"You can't do that," Paradise said, more alert. "You just can't." She glanced at Harry's face. "You're going to do it. My brother's a Ravenclaw!"

"This is healing," Harry said, trying to keep the evident squeal out of his voice. "Healing. I can use this to help people!"

Paradise stared. "Okay. I misspoke. My brother's a true-born Hufflepuff!"

Harry stuck his tongue out at her. He grabbed Hedwig's letter and pulled open the seal. Paradise grabbed the letter from St. Mungo's and read it briefly before shrugging. "I'm hungry." Harry pointed her into the kitchen. The letter was, predictably, from the Summerbys.

Lord Potter,

We can assure you, our son is now getting the proper care. You can verify this through David.

Please stay out of our lives.

Gregory Summerby

That felt weird. Harry stuffed the letter in his pocket. He'd owl David later to make sure everything was okay. "Is there anything more than fruit?" Paradise asked, from the other room.

"Just eat an apple," Harry called. He headed for the only real room he hadn't yet seen. And knocked. It was late enough that he really didn't feel guilty waking Aurora up, but he didn't… he didn't… this didn't feel right.

"Just a second, Harry." Aurora said, still from inside her room. How'd she know it was him and not Paradise?

Harry sat down in one of the armchairs and waited for his guardian. She emerged in short order. If a bit disheveled. "I'm still not a morning person," Aurora grumbled, sitting next to Harry. He handled her the St. Mungo's letter. She read, sighed, and looked at her young charge. "If I don't let you go, I'm going to be a bad guy for a while, aren't I?" The shining, eager light in Harry's eye told her the whole story. This kid wanted to heal. "You're welcome to go, Harry."

"Yes!"

"But Aurora!" Paradise whined, coming into the room from the kitchen. "You can't let him do school during vacation. It's not healthy."

"You do your summer homework at the last second, don't you," Harry asked, rolling his eyes.

"'course. Didn't you?"

"Well, the past two years—"

"Ha! Gotcha now."

"Children," Aurora said, drawling her words out. "Settle."

"Yes, Aurora," they said in unison.

She blinked at the two children, so full innocence when their lives had been so full of unnecessary pain. "I need to report back to Hogwarts on Saturday morning. That gives us five days to do what you want and what you feel is necessary. Harry, I'm sure you can be transported from Hogwarts to St. Mungo's easily enough. And on Thursday, you can probably go to Mungo's from Neville's and return to the same place. But the two of you, what do you want to do in the morning and the evenings of the other days?"

Harry and Paradise looked at each other.

"Look, even if there's no way I can provide it, I want to know what you'd like to do."

"Cinema?" Paradise said, sounding hopeful. Harry nodded.

"I can do that. Harry?"

"Do you think we could visit my family vaults, or one of them? Or, just to see what it's like. And maybe if we could go to one of my England houses…" Aurora had an inkling that dealing with Harry's wealth would take much more time than he expected. "And I want to take Paradise shopping for whatever she wants, but I don't personally want to go shopping, so can I just give Para money and let you go shopping while I'm at St. Mungo's?"

Their guardian had to fight the instinct to not let Harry buy things. He was buying a Firebolt for someone, because he was technically the head of their old house. The kid was generous. And if a Firebolt was what he wanted to give away to Alicia, she didn't really want to think of what his Christmas presidents for his closest friends would be. Paradise's eyes were gleaming. "That sounds good. Although, I will put a limit on whatever allowance or amount of money you give Paradise." The girl pouted. "About fifty galleons a year, you think?" Paradise gaped.

Harry nodded. "Well, if she gets an extra twenty galleons to spend during December for Christmas. And anything that she doesn't spend of that can revert back to me."

"Good with me. What do you think Paradise?"

The girl blinked. To Harry, she whispered, "How loaded are you?"

"Um, well, the exact number keeps changing and Mr. Regan expects a big boom when we release the Harry Potter endorsed clothing line in early November. And it doesn't hurt to own diamond mines. Or a successful Quidditch team. In liquid assets, you know, the galleons, sickles and knuts, I'm pretty much a trillionaire. That probably triples in value when you add all my properties and inventories and the family vaults. Right now I'd say I'm a multi-trillionaire."

Paradise blinked. Even Aurora was surprised at hearing the numbers again. "So you're like, the richest man in the world?" Paradise asked, awed.

"Urm—"

"Anyway, that allowance sounds great to me," Paradise said, grinning, when Harry trailed off. "Can I get a pet? Like a real owl?"

"Of course!" That was both Aurora and Harry. They looked at each other. Harry blushed.

The new family didn't do anything that morning. They sat around, talked, and introduced each other to various muggle and wizarding games. They ate, and while Paradise ran outside to climb a tree, Aurora and Harry talked about money and the things you couldn't buy with it. Not to her surprise, Aurora found Harry completely grounded in reality and well aware that, while he might have been the richest man in the world, that didn't mean a thing if he didn't do the right things with it. Healer, kept running through Harry's mind at the time. Of if not a healer, than someone would could invent new spells to help people, or find magical cures to leukaemia!

They ate lunch, after Harry insisted that Aurora show him his way around a magical kitchen. After lunch, Harry gathered note taking materials and readied to be portkeyed – Aurora had to explain that it was yet another transportation device – to St. Mungo's. Paradise waved him goodbye and promised to have a ridiculously good time relaxing while he was studying. Harry didn't care. Traveling by portkey wasn't fun. He was pinched and pulled and bumped and torn through space before being dropped unceremonially on a hard, white tile floor.

"Mr. Potter," said a friendly voice, "Welcome to St. Mungo's."

Harry climbed to his feet, readjusted his book bag, and blinked up at the elderly man greeting him. "Hi."

"Please move away from the transport zone," said the man. As Harry did so, he stuck out his hand. "I am Daniel Jainsberg. Ah, here comes Ms. Bell right now."

With that, Katie kerthumped into the floor. She bounced up easily enough, waved to Harry and greeted Jainsberg fluidly. He directed the two of them down a hallway and into a classroom. Katie nearly dragged Harry along; she was easily ten times more excited than he and that was saying something. He recognized a few of the Hogwarts students, but it was difficult when none of them were wearing a house uniform. There were only five others in the room, seven in total. To Harry, it seemed as if everyone was between fifth and third year. He and Katie were the only Gryffindors.

Harry bounced right up and introduced himself to the closet kid. "Julius Vaisey," said the boy, with some mild surprise when he was asked for his name. "Fourth year Slytherin."

Next was Cho Chang, fourth year Ravenclaw. After her was Jacob Dare, fifth year Sltyerhin. After him was Horizon Zale, fifth year Hufflepuff (Harry sort of remembered other Zales, from somewhere. Probably. He wasn't really trusting his memory at that point.) And lastly, was Fae Daniels, another fifth year Hufflepuff. Harry wasn't really weirded out by being the only third year. He had enough randomly odd things happen to him that, eh, any learning opportunity should be valued.

Jainsberg entered the room in a few minutes and they immediately started talking about the Mind and how the Mind worked. It was fascinating stuff. Harry learned what a neuron was. He learned how magic – which messed up electricity – could twist the electrical impulse within and neuron and stop it from working probably. Patients with a severe over exposure to crucio had brain problems because those electrical impulses were magically damaged. Sometimes, Jainsberg carefully emphasized the rarity of the event, to not end up with seven scared teenagers on his hands, a botched memory charm could do the same thing. Then abruptly as he came in, Jainsberg left and another mind healer, one of the women from Hogwart's the day before walked in and proclaimed that Jainsberg had no idea what he was talking and that he was a muggle raised idiot. Katie instantly took offense and started arguing that Jainsberg had science on his side.

The new healer ignored Katie and presented a theory that brains worked on magic itself, and even Muggles had just a small amount of magic – not enough to show up on any scan – but enough to keep the brain working. She said that magic was integral to every aspect of the nervous system and without magic, the brain simply wouldn't work. Her theory on why prolonged crucio victims went crazy was the magic of their brain stopped working properly and could no longer function. When she'd finished explaining that, Jainsberg reentered the room and the two of them had a debate as to which theory was more medically sound. They encouraged the students to take part and further theorize why either idea could be correct.

Harry, Katie and Jacob took Jainsberg side of the argument. Horizon, Fae, Cho and Julius took the woman's side of the argument. Until the two and a half hour mark, they simply argued about how the mind could work. At that time, Jainsberg stopped the discussion and asked each individual people what they had learned from that exercise.

Cho immediately answered that sometimes, there are two different ideas and neither may be wrong. Jacob said that magic messes with science. Horizon echoed Cho. Katie and Julius seemed to believe that Jainsberg had made them do that exercise because he wanted them to think outside their level of training. Fae declined to answer. When Jainsberg got to Harry, the youngest of the lot tentatively muttered that they probably did the exercise to study backgrounds. He knew that Horizon was a noah, and Fae seemed to carry herself like someone from one of the higher levels of nobility. Cho and Julius acted like purebloods. While he was muggle raised, he knew Katie was a halfblood, and it wasn't hard to hypothesis that Dare could be a halfblood or muggleborn too – it seemed conceivable that the bias of whatever childhood seemed to make a big difference on how people saw the world.

Jainsberg picked one word out of Harry's answer. Bias. They spent the next half hour debating how bias affects people and how it sometimes twists the mind. At the three hour mark, Jainsberg brought them on a tour through one of the levels of St. Mungo's; a wing specifically oriented to treat long term patients who had mind problems. "I know this is probably an extreme cautionary tale," Jainsberg said, shrugging, "but this is what happens when you experiment with Mind Arts. This insanity. I'm not going to insult your intelligence by giving you a lot of dos and don'ts. You're smarter than that. Back to the room now."

They were given floos home. Harry arrived to find Aurora and Paradise waiting for him, ready to side-along apparate to a movie theater at the nearest town, which Paradise said should still qualify as the middle of nowhere. Harry was pretty sure she was a London girl. Aurora took Harry first and then popped back with Paradise within a few seconds. She looked a rather tired, but gamely followed when Paradise dragged both of them to the cinema and asked for Beauty and the Beast. It was a fairytale. Harry was pretty sure he shouldn't have been happy about that, but he couldn't help it. He truly did enjoy fairytales.

And Beauty and the Beast was good. Of course, seeing any movie in the theatre was awesome, but this fairytale was particularly enjoyable. All the dancing and singing plates and dishes made him things of the house elves at Hogwarts. The room with all the shadowy creatures and things could be compared to that third floor corridor crossed with the horrid dementors. It was actually rather horrible, but fun all around. Down with Gaston! The little family wandered around the town for a few minutes before heading into a small café for dinner. They ate and Aurora left Harry in the café before she popped Paradise home. She was back for Harry within seconds.

Back at Ursa-upon-Heavens, Aurora curled into the couch with a magic replenishing potion that Harry fetched for her from his trunk. Paradise looked slightly curious, but neither she nor Aurora dared as why Harry kept a variety of helpful potions tucked away. Plans were made for when to head to Gringotts in the morning. Harry and Paradise both wanted to go early, which had Sinistra bemoaning her astronomist sleep schedule. They laughed at her.

Paradise didn't fall asleep quickly, she was that excited about shopping the following day. Harry stayed up, penning a note first to Neville telling him about the training and that he'd need to leave between one and five, and then writing a long letter to Hermione about all they learned about the mind. He fingered she'd appreciate it. He told Hedwig to deliver the note to Neville first, and then head over to Hermione's. She hooted, happily, before winging off on his command.

"What kind of owl should I get, Harry?" Paradise asked, when he finally turned the light off.

"Whichever one you like the most, Paradise."

"Oh. Really?"

"Yes."

o.o.o.o.o.o

They didn't make it through the night. Paradise started screaming, shortly after two am. Harry woke instantly, always a light sleeper. He tried to get her to wake up, but she wouldn't wake. She only screamed. Aurora didn't wake and wouldn't wake when Harry called for her. A frustrated Harry was out of ideas until he grabbed a glass of water from the kitchen and splashed it all over Paradise's face.

She woke, shivering. Her screams turned into quick, shallow sobs and it took her over an hour to fall back asleep. All Harry could manage to learn from her gasping words was that the alternate reality had not been kind to her, especially in the form of Marcus Flint. That was all. And she couldn't say more. So when eventually she did manage to sleep, Harry found himself struggling to fall asleep. But, surprisingly, he managed.

He'd had the this type of dream before, where he's with one or two of his friends and the dementors come and start sucking the life from his friends and he can't stop them because his patroni don't work. These dreams terrify him. This time, he was walking with Paradise and Sarah down an abandoned path. Sarah had a yellow pencil and kept angrily scribbling on things. Her yellow blobs were almost as terrifying as… a dementor swooped down and sucked away her life. Her screams filled Harry's every cell. Until Paradise started screaming. He couldn't protect them. He cast the spell again and again but the patroni couldn't come. They wouldn't come!

"Harry!" Paradise splashed cold water of his face, even though he was waking up to her call. Still… he blinked blearily at her, obviously not fully aware of what was going on. He stared at Paradise and the empty water glass in her hand and the felt his own wet face and hair. "Payback," Paradise mumbled, with no hint of humor or even attempted humor. She was just sad.

"What time is?" Harry asked, groping around for his glasses.

"'bout four," Paradise said.

"Sleep again?" Harry said, not really sure if he'd manage it.

Paradise shrugged. "I don't know. Can you read me a story?"

Harry pulled his book of fairytales from his still packed trunk and started to read the story he was on. Paradise curled into a ball and fell asleep at the foot of his bed. When he was sure she was asleep, Harry extinguished the light and, to his dreamy surprise, fell asleep as well. That was how Aurora found them, some ten minutes after their scheduled wake-up time. Both children were asleep, curled up. Paradise had somehow yanked the covers untucked and rolled up in them. She was curled into an adorable ball of eleven-year-old girl.

One of them must have had a nightmare again. Guilt twinged at Aurora; she'd slept whatever their nighttime troubles had been. "Harry, Paradise." She didn't need to speak loudly. Both children jolted upright, Paradise still half asleep, but Harry awake and already reaching for his wand. The lives they had previously lived… the horrors they so consistently lived with… who could do that to a child? "I'm not going to ask if you're okay; I know you're not. Do you want to tell me what's wrong?" Paradise mutely shook her head. Harry said he'd had the dementor-death dream again. He'd told her about it, like he was learning to do. "Breakfast?"

Breakfast was quiet. Both the children ate, but they did not eat a lot. Both the children talked, but they did not talk a lot. Aurora sent the two of them to prepare for their day out while she flicked the few spells in the kitchen to begin the cleaning process. She let in an owl from the window and paid for a copy of the Daily Prophet.

Realities Crossed! Children Subjected to Mind Horrors!

Unexpected Vacation, Explained! Illegal Memory Modifications!

The articles were many, vast, and long. Aurora stared at the paper, not really understanding the information that was fulfilling her head. These articles… all claiming to know the cause and predicting the effects of some impossible charm gone wrong. She could remember both realities clearly enough. She could remember talking with Poppy complaining about how bullies could pick on the younger children and nothing would be done. She remembered her best friend dissolving into tears one night because of the state a little first year girl was found in. No one had figured out who'd…

Aurora started to shake.

"Here," she could hear Harry saying a few rooms away, "Why don't you borrow this cloak for today? It'll match that skirt brilliantly."

She knew that wasn't the reason Harry was insisting Paradise wear one of his cloaks. That boy was generous to a fault. The professor and new guardian continued to shake, desperately fighting for control in her mind and body.

These children, ran a featured quote from Mind Healer Alyssa Mena, had a month of their lives erased and replaced with new, somewhat horrific memories. What I saw in the fully developed alternate world sickened me. I, even, with so much experience with such horrific acts struggled to deal with what I saw in the alternate Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I saw a world where students bullied, cheated, injured, lied and even raped other students without punishment. The pain I felt in these children's minds should be endured by no one, especially school kids! These children will deal with a severe sense of distorted reality for long after any physical effects of this event have faded. The staff of St. Mungo's strongly recommends that parents seek help in the recovery of their children. And if reform isn't brought to Hogwarts in response to this full-scale terrorist act, the staff of St. Mungo's, who are parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings, and friends of current students, shall bring reform by ourselves.

Mena was quoted frequently, in part, or even in whole when she ranted on for some three pages about how the fully-developed world she'd seen glimpses of proved that such a crime was pre-mediated.

"Aurora?" Harry again, "you okay?"

Aurora looked down at the kids. Harry was right. His navy blue cloak really did match Paradise's simplistic gray and blue skirt. "This poor girl," she could remember Poppy saying in the alternate memories, "just a first year, and so brave. She shouldn't have to know what rape is!"

"Ready to go?" Paradise asked, hoping from one foot to the other. Harry had a bag slung over his shoulder that probably held everything he needed for class. Aurora forced herself to put down the paper, nod, and join her two charges at the fireplace.