Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter either. It belongs to its creator J.K. Rowling and probably Warner Bros. too. I'm not too sure about that. This piece of literature is simply the work of a humble fan. I also credit Jim Butcher for various themes, subjects, or references that I may use.
Author Notes: This is a Harry Potter crossover with the Dresden Files the book series. All my knowledge of the Dresden Files comes from the books. I've never seen the TV series. For the timeline that will be stated later. Thanks to the folks at DLP for help with editing.
Awaken Sleeper.
Chapter Two: This Kind of Manipulation
By: Water Mage
The Sorting Hat hadn't lied when it said that Harry should have been in Slytherin. Sometimes it was just too easy to manipulate people. Flash his pretty green eyes, and people thought he was the most naive boy that could never do wrong. It was a trait he had noticed in recent years, and exploited it relentlessly at a given opportunity. This time was no different.
His psych evaluations had been going on for days now, and the week, as well as his evaluations, was coming to a close. He was being observed constantly, closely monitored for signs of degeneration in normal behavior. If he passed all these tests then he would be as free as a convict on parole. It wasn't a matter of if he passed, more when he passed. Harry worked each physician like a hooker trying to land a trick. He used every bit of charm he had picked up from Bill Weasley and his cheeks were beginning to hurt from all the amount of smiling he was doing. Today he even got to wear normal clothes, four days after his abrupt "recovery". It was normally against hospital regulation, but he had most of the staff swayed by his charm. It was almost too easy.
Harry sat in the patients' recreation room at a table that overlooked the sprawling countryside. He stared at the sun, watching it but not really seeing it. His mind ran repeatedly over the conclusions he had formed over the last few days. He had tried apparition everyday, only to fail at every attempt, but still held onto the hope that his magic was simply replenishing itself. His reasoned that the Shift, as he had termed it, must have completely drained him of every ounce of magic in his body. The other probability was one he refused to entertain. There was no way that he had dreamed his life. He had been through too much shit for it all to be just some fucked up delusion of an insane boy. Magic was real damn it.
Things were different here. In this world, reality, dimension, universe—he didn't know what to call it. The Dursley's never let him watch TV, so he didn't know the correct usage of the word Science Fiction shows tagged to these scenarios. It was 1998 here and back home it was the year 2000. But he was twenty in both places. He didn't know why the two realities timelines were skewed, and didn't care. He wanted to know how? How was here in the first place, wearing this body, in this situation? He had given up on this being a trap set by dark wizards after the third day. There was no point to putting him through this. It just wasn't malevolent enough. Throw in some good old fashion rapin' and some torture then he sure as hell would have called it. But these people were too nice, too friendly, too polite, and intent on helping him with his recovery.
On top of it all there was the Potters, who were everything he had ever wanted growing up. Both were ecstatic to have their son again, and Harry was awed more than anything at having them fawn over him. The most surprising thing was the four year old son the couple had. A brother. He had to shake his head. This whole week was the most surrealist of his life. The little boy was named Aiden Potter, and he had dark, reddish brown hair and hazel eyes. Harry hadn't met him yet, but Aiden sounded like the sweetest kid. James and Lily didn't want to bring him to the hospital, since he had a habit of getting fussy in inappropriate settings.
Adjustments had to be made. He had to stop thinking of them as Harrison's parents, and even turned now when he was called Harrison. It made things easier all around. He couldn't have his doctors know that he still thought without a shadow of a doubt that he was Harry Potter, wizard. He knew it and believed it, but they didn't need to know that. If he wanted out of this jailhouse then he had to get with the program. He was going to work this system. Harrison Potter had been a cationic schizophrenic, but Harry Potter was someone they had never dealt with. He turned toward the doorway just as Nurse Hewett sauntered over. A slow smile spread across his face. Thus starteth the lesson.
"Hi, Harrison!" she chirped, yes chirped, as she neared his table.
The room was thankfully empty and Harry was momentarily bitter that others weren't graced with her presence as well. He screwed his fake smile on a little tighter and smiled at her, putting a little juice in it so it reached his eyes. He applauded Albus Dumbledore for that little trick.
"Hullo, Jen," he said rolling the word hello slowly across his tongue, as if it were a caress.
Harry puzzled out that she had a thing for accents, and dialed up his whenever she was around. She was annoying as hell with her constant talking, but was dead useful at fetching things he needed. She reminded him of a golden retriever in a way with her fair hair, countless efforts to please him, and besotted adoration. If he boozed her up no doubt that she would be quite the freaky bint during a good shagging.
The nurse blushed just as he predicted she would. "All ready for your session with Dr. Swanson?"
"Sure," he rose up from his seat, and bowed lowly. "After you."
She giggled like a dainty schoolgirl and he wanted to gag. But he just smiled charmingly and followed her from the room. Nurse Hewett didn't know a thing about the English. She assumed all Brits did a lot of bowing, and bravado acts of chivalry like defending honor, and standing up when in the presence of a woman. She was a bit dim, but he played up to it. It was a small price to pay for having ears on the inside. After working at Summerholm for five years Nurse Hewett had built up good relations with all the staff, so she quietly kept Harry updated on how he was doing on his evaluations, and what the doctors thought about his progressing behavior.
"Dr. Swanson's a friend of mine," Nurse Hewett prattled on, barely taking enough pause to breath. "So I put in a good word for you."
Harry winked at her. "Thanks. A little bit goes a long way."
Two pink dots appeared on her cheeks and Harry chuckled inwardly. She reminded him a bit of Ginny when she was younger. He didn't enjoy playing with her feelings, but he would do anything to get out of here. If that took manipulating the people around him to get what he wanted, then so be it.
"I like your clothes," she said smiling and all but batting her eyelashes.
Harry smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle in his polo. "Thanks. I'm told they're very stylish."
She nodded far too quickly, making Harry speculate that she would soon suffer from neck pains. "They are!"
"Oh, I meant to thank you for earlier," said Harry suddenly. "For setting up that phone call to my parents this morning."
"Don't worry about it," said Jen, waving her hand dismissively. Although she was beaming rather blindingly at the appreciation. "I know the doctors want you to focus on your recovery this week for your evaluations. But it's your parents. Who cares if they may 'taint' your answers?"
Harry nodded and wondered did she even realize that the only reason she setup the call is because Harry had made a remark about wanting to talk to them. He had put on a crestfallen expression and sighed sadly for good measure till she finally got a clue, and suggested it. All the while she never realized it was Harry's intention for her to do exactly that.
They came to Dr. Swanson's office, and Nurse Hewett reluctantly bade Harry goodbye. It was a sentiment that he didn't share. It was creepy and a little uncomfortable that the decade older woman looked at him like a prisoner on death row about to eat her last meal. He would weep with the joy the day he left her clutches. He faced the door and took a breath. Here we go. Showtime.
Dr. Swanson was a woman who reminded him eerily of Professor McGonagall. They looked nothing alike. But the no nonsense personality was stamped all across her face that was perpetually fixed into a blank mask. Harry had only met her briefly once before, and from their chat he had garnered that it was best not to charm his way with her. She had taken one look at him during their encounter, and her lips had thinned into a clear line of confused contemplation. There was no way his smile or innocent green eyes were going to give him a leg up on her. He had to be much more subtle with manipulation in his dealings with her.
He entered the office and dark brown eyes pinned him on the spot. If he hadn't lived the life he had then he would have been nervous. A strict psychiatrist was barely a blip on his radar. She brushed her short, wavy hair away from her face. Hair that was just as dark as the deep black eyes that calmly assessed and weighed him. Harry took a seat without being told, mentally wondering if all the physicians in Summerholm had the same old couch and armchair set. Dr. Swanson opened her pad and clicked her pen, already jotting down notes. Harry fought down the twitch in his lips. If Snape were alive then this would be his perfect mate. Both had zero personality and constant surly expressions.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Potter," she finally said, with the slightest smile that you had to squint to even see.
"Hello, Doctor," he replied, mirroring her smile. He would take his cues from her then go from there.
"So how are you feeling today?" the Doctor asked. "Any previous symptoms appear recently?"
Harry shook his head, putting on an ecstatic face. "I'm feeling great! None of my old episodes have made a comeback."
"That's good news," she replied, marking on her pad once again. "Any unusual dreams or frequent daydreams that distort your perception of reality?"
"No," answered Harry, pretending to think carefully. He even added a custom head scratch as he squinted up his eyes thoughtfully. "None that I can think of, Doctor."
Dr. Swanson made a nose of acknowledgment, and bent her head scribbling casually in the notepad. Harry patiently sat on the couch, pretending to be interested in the paintings that adorned the walls. She had a thing for abstract art. None of the paintings looked like one thing, and the more you looked at it the chances it had of morphing into something else.
"I want to talk about your delusions," said Dr. Swanson, training her penetrating gaze on him. "How do you feel about them being gone?"
"Honestly, I feel relieved," answered Harry, smiling crookedly. Play the game echoed never-ending in his head. "That world wasn't what it was cracked up to be. I would rather be here, in the real world, any day of the week."
Harry continued on like that. He spun his tale like a spider spinning a craftily woven web. It was a web of lies, each supporting the other, till he built up quite a sturdy support. He told her that he recognized his previous fantasies and dreams as delusions, and reiterated his point that he knew that the real world was where he wanted to be, and the life of a wizard was unacceptable. Now he wanted to be Harrison Potter, no more, no less. Harry Potter was dead.
Harry nodded emphatically to one of her questions, and then schooled his face into one of confusion. "I don't understand doctor. The world— the dream. Why would I create such a place?"
"The murder of your godfather was a mental trauma that was too painful and overwhelming for you to even fathom, so you retreated inside a fantasy world where you had the power to protect yourself and friends."
Harry wanted to scowl, but that would throw off his whole reformed insane image. Bollocks. She sounded so sure of herself and it pissed him off. Who the hell was she to act like she knew his life, knew the shit that he had been through? Faced with a day in the wizarding world it would be she that would be driven mad by all the shit she couldn't explain. She wouldn't last ten hours. Bet on it.
"So with your theory in mind…" said Harry slowly wearing his thoughtful face again, "It doesn't make sense that Sirius died again in my fantasies." He made his eyes wide and innocent. "Now does it?"
Dr. Swanson cocked her head, eyes widening in surprise. "You're right. You make an excellent point, Mr. Potter."
She was gazing at him with a speculative eye now. Harry smirked inwardly. He had her. She was no longer looking at him like you would look at insects through a glass cage. Dr. Swanson looked interested and surprised that Harry actually had enough brains to poke a hole in the doctors' collective theory. Stick around folks, the show's not over yet. These doctors didn't know who they were fucking with.
"Why wizardry in the first place?" asked Harry, his tone a little stronger and surer further capturing her attention. "I could have dreamed to be Prime Minister—sorry, President. Or I could have dreamed that Sirius and I never went out that night."
Dr. Swanson tapped a finger against her chin in deep thought. "You raise excellent topics. I would speculate that—"
She took the bait.
Dr. Swanson told him her theory and Harry pretended to listen attentively. She didn't suddenly become his best friend or as dutiful and dotting as Nurse Hewett, but there was a noticeable shift in her behavior toward him. His manipulation was subtle but it worked. Dr. Swanson had reasoned that there was actually intelligence in him, and it wasn't often that she dealt with perceptive patients. From Harry's initial observations, she had regarded him with pity and a bit of disdain. He had played on that flaw, turning the session into less of an interrogation and more of a meeting of minds. He mentally tipped his hat to Kingsley Shacklebolt. He didn't learn his skills by playing wizarding chess with Ron. There was a rumor in the senior levels of the Ministry, that Shacklebolt was grooming Harry to one day take over as head of the Aurors, and for the first time the rumors hadn't been too far off. Looks like some of things he learned was paying off sooner rather than later. He tuned back into Dr. Swanson.
"—and I believe that your scar actually symbolized a distinction you unconsciously placed upon yourself to set you apart from your fictional environment," theorized Dr. Swanson. "After all none of the other soul items or victims were marked in such a way."
It was a curse scar, bitch. He turned his sneer into a puzzled frown, wiping it from his face. She was definitely warmer toward him, but he didn't have to like her presumptions. He may have manipulated her into it, but she was talking about his life like, like some bloody fairytale.
"You'll have a lot of catching up to do," said Dr. Swanson, suddenly switching topics. Or maybe Harry hadn't really been paying attention. Probably the latter. "You've missed five years. You'll have to get a GED. It will be hard, but I think you'll be able to cope."
Harry didn't know what the hell a GED was, but he nodded along as if she was spouting the meaning of life. She recommended that Harry make appointments to see a psychiatrist once a week, to talk about how he was adapting and to discuss if his delusions return. Harry grinned. All he had was one more evaluation tomorrow and then the senior staff would discuss his case. If they deemed him sane enough he would be free to leave the following day. All this was according to Nurse Hewett. He personally thought she rode the short bus, but he would give her the benefit of the doubt. The woman seemed to know her job.
Harry was free to leave and was thankfully escorted back to his room by a different nurse rather than Nurse Hewett. Her shift had thankfully ended for the evening. Good. He was tired of looking at her smiling face and lustful eyes. That woman really needed to get laid. Harry entered the tiny room and winced at how cramped it seemed after spending hours from its cell-like confines. He lay on his bed spread out as much as the single sized mattress would allow.
It was about time he got some shit straight. He was almost out of Summerholm and he needed a game plan. There was no way that he was just going to go on at life as Harrison Potter, and put his entire history in the back of his mind labeled as 'bad ass dream'. No way.
He needed answers. Harrison Potter had somehow tapped into the fantastic and extravagant life of Harry Potter. Harry snorted and rolled his eyes then frowned. Harrison was his alternate self he reasoned, so if he was here, in his body, then where was Harrison. Did his mind, his soul, remain somewhere in the unused parts of his psyche. Or was everything Harrison was get consumed or simply burned away with Harry's abrupt resurrection in this body. Did he kill his double? He shook his head. It was pointless to continue that line of thought without evidence to back up the claim. Until he had solid answers all he had were theories and half formed guesses and that wasn't good enough.
What was curious was the fact that Harrison was even able to transcend space and time to view his life. They didn't share the same soul, but the essence of what made them, well them, was the same as the last name they both shared. So that was the link of how Harrison was able to zero in on him. Harry closed his eyes. There was something he was missing. He followed that line of thought—there. His eyes snapped open staring at the solo light bulb in the ceiling. Seeing things that cant normally be seen was divination. Did that mean Harrison was a seer? Fuck that. Divination was about power, magical power. Which meant that Harrison was magical. Magic did exist here.
"I fucking knew it," he grinned triumphantly, staring hard at the speckled ceiling.
Okay then, he thought sighing with sudden relief, okay. Magic was real. Magic was real. Magic was real. He wanted to shout it from a rooftop, but that would only prove that he was as insane as he was proving he was not.
Magic was fucking real. It felt so good to know. An inkling of dread had gnawed at him for days, and had only increased when he failed at another go at apparation. He grasped onto his magical exhaustion idea, and used it to fuel his belief that he wasn't crazy, and he really could do magic.
Now if Harrison could do magic did that make him a wizard? Were there even wizards in this world? Hell, was there even a wizarding world. What could he do about a wand? Harry swallowed as the list grew longer and longer. He knew nothing about this new place he was in. Everything could be turned upside down. If Harrison could do magic then his body, now Harry's body... was it capable of magic? Were their magics even compatible? Was that why Harry couldn't apparate? Maybe Harrison's magic didn't work like Harry's.
"No," he whispered aloud, dismissing that thought.
He was going off of speculation again. He had no proof of their magic meshing or he only having Harrison's unfamiliar magic coursing through his body. Maybe he really was suffering from magical exhaustion. He just had to be calm and rational about this. Going off half cocked had gotten him fucked over more in the past more times than he could count.
Harry sighed stomping down the urge to get up and pace. There were too many factors in this equation for him to solve. There was a huge piece of this puzzle that he felt like he was missing. He had an odd feeling that rubbed at him, hinting that he knew how he came to be here but his mind refused to cough up the damn information. Every time he focused on that train of thought it grew foggier and more obscured, as if he didn't never really know the answer after all. It was tad bit more than frustrating.
The things he knew so far were, he was Harry James Potter and four days ago he was a twenty year old Auror, liberator of the wizarding world from Dark Lord Voldemort, and orphan. He was on assignment. A routine raid. The actual incursion was hazy, but curses were flung from both sides. He may've been hit. There was green light. Was it the Killing Curse? He was still alive however. But that didn't mean much when it came to him. Was he dead? Was this his afterlife? Nurse Hewett flashed across his mind, beaming and waving wildly. Hell no. He chuckled. Speaking of— It was definitely not that place. Voldemort would have given a shout out by now.
The further sequence of events is when things got crazy. Literally. He suddenly woke up and found out he was some bloke named Harrison Potter, who was insane and had dreamed everything Harry had ever been through in his life. He was twenty years old, and had been in Summerholm for the last five years dreaming of Harry Potter to the point of being almost catatonic, like some kind of super prophet who couldn't turn their ability off. He wasn't positive on the psychic bit, and he was most likely completely wrong. As far as he could see, there was no trace of Harrison in him. He may have his body, but all of his mind and soul was Harry Potter. What constituted magic in the body remained to be seen?
Deep magic. His brain started to ache from the information overload. He wasn't cut out for all this in depth logic and reasoning for a mystery as big as this. Hermione would have probably puzzled it together faster than you could say Hogwarts, A History. He massaged his fingertips against his temples. Where was the Hardy Boys when you needed them? Probably off gangbanging Nancy Drew. He would be surprised if even they could solve this mystery. Harry massaged his temples harder, headaches always managed to send his thoughts scattering and incoherent.
He was still locked up in the loony bin so there wasn't much point in his constant thinking. Right now his thoughts just constantly circled, starting, finishing, and then starting back over in a cycle. Right now he needed to focus on finishing the week out and getting out of here.
"I can't wait for that to happen," he finished his thought verbally, contemplating what the outside would be like.
It had been years since he had really lived in the muggle world. He hoped that he didn't fuck up something completely normal that most people took for granted, which is what often happened to muggleborns when in the wizarding world. His parents practically gushed about having him home, and how his room was already for him when he came. Harry wouldn't admit it out loud, but he was basking in the attention that bestowed upon him. It might be selfish of him for him to revel in the affection that rightfully belonged to Harrison, but it looked like for the time being he was Harrison Potter, for better or worse.
Harry definitely counted on the for worse. His life was never anything but quiet. It would be a cold day in hell before fate let go of Harry Potter. New name or new body, he was not through being destiny's plaything. When he got out here it was only a matter of time before a Quaffle would be thrown at this new life. He had to start getting a move. The sooner the better. He ran through his thoughts and Harry mentally began to list the things he had to do.
Test magic.
Find out about magic in this world.
Figure out how Harrison had managed to spy/get lost/see in my life.
Look for Harrison's soul. Destroyed, hiding, lost?
Search for a way home.
Harry checked his list twice. It was better he didn't write it down. It was safer to just keep it in his head. The list wasn't very long, by any means, but the tasks were daunting. It wouldn't be the first time. Nothing ever was simple for him. Alternate world or not. It was hell of a lot to do, but a boy's got to have a goal.
Harry Dresden will eventually play a role in the story for those who asked. For those wondering if Harry will use magic, just wait. Its coming. The chapters will be getting longer as well. His stay in the hospital wasn't intended to be long drawn and out. This is the last chapter we'll see Harry in the hospital. Next chapter he's free.