Chapter Eight
"Harry," said the man who could have been James Potter in his late thirties. "Are you okay? You gave us a real fright."
He swept over to Lily's side, peering over his glasses at Harry who was still sagged on the bed, pillows bunched up behind him. He couldn't think of anything to say, he just goggled at the people who looked like his parents standing in front of him.
They both looked so...normal. Both in jeans, James still with a travelling cloak on, Lily with chipped green nail varnish and striped, well worn slippers on her feet. James put his arm around the woman that was supposedly his wife, and together they wore looks of concern.
"I don't know what's going on," said Harry, truthfully.
Lily turned to James. "I want to call a Healer," she said firmly. "I think he may have been muddled, a Confundus Charm or something."
James came closer and sat in front of Harry, who couldn't help but curl his legs away, like a scared animal shying away from a curious onlooker. He could tell his breathing was ragged but he couldn't seem to slow it down. "Are you okay mate?" the man asked sympathetically.
No, was the simple answer to that. Someone, or more than one someone, was tormenting him with this make-believe world. But why? He'd been so preoccupied with the how, he hadn't until this moment stopped to consider why someone would do this to him? For fun? To watch him suffer? Harry was sure Voldemort would enjoy anything that upset him. But surely his real life was upsetting enough, what with his parents actually being dead and now Sirius under threat of having his soul sucked from him for a crime he didn't commit. Why would someone give him this fiction?
"I don't know," he said after a few moments passed. "I feel okay, bit of a headache. Things are just a bit hazy."
James looked up at Lily. "He asked me who I was, where we were, then told me I was dead," she said, rather deadpan and eyes locked on Harry.
James turned back to Harry with real concern. "Memory loss?" he said, reaching to touch Harry's face.
But that was too much for Harry. He jerked back, scuttling off the bed, back into the corner he'd barricaded himself into before. "Don't touch me," he said, almost fearful.
James' face didn't show much emotion, but he stayed looking at Harry for a good while. "Dr Jaisun," he said, before standing and turning to Lily. It was like Harry was no longer in the room. "He was the Healer we got when Sarah came down with Spattergroit. He'll be discreet."
Harry watched them defensively as they moved to face him. "Is that okay Harry," said Lily in a calm tone, like she was dealing with someone unstable. "If the Healer comes and takes a look at you?"
Harry didn't know what else to say. So he nodded. "Okay," he said. Who knew? Maybe this doctor would be able to actually give him some answers.
James took Lily's hand. "I think you should get some rest," he suggested as they backed up towards the door. "Sleep might clear things up a bit for you."
Harry doubted that very much, unless this was all some sort of bad dream, but he nodded again anyway, and they slipped out and closed the door.
He let go a heavy breath, stunned. All those years, fantasising about his mum and dad, what they would be like. Until Hagrid was kind enough to contact their school friends and get all those old photos, Harry hadn't even been sure what they'd really looked like. He closed his eyelids and rested his fingers on them. The woman's eyes had been green.
"You look just like your dad," people had always told him. "Except for your eyes. You have your mother's eyes." They'd been right.
Could they be people under the influence of Polyjuice potion? When he and Ron had used it back in their Second Year, to take the form of Crabbe and Goyle, the effects had only lasted an hour, and they had kept their own voices which had almost given them away. But again, the only time he had heard his parents talk was in the ghostly echoes he'd experienced at the hands on the Dementors, and he couldn't say for sure whether they matched. Where would anyone have even gotten some of their hair, or any other part of their body? They'd been dead for so long.
He thought again about what the point would be of someone doing this to him, it just didn't make sense. It didn't have to make sense though to scramble his guts up like it had. He felt physically sick, his emotions raw and unfamiliar. How were you supposed to react to meeting the family you thought had been dead your whole life?
He sighed, and opened his eyes again, trying to find some purchase of calm. He was never going to get anywhere unless he worked out what was going on.
He looked around the bedroom. The was a poster for the Weird Sisters in between the wardrobe and the door, and the band members were thrashing their instruments soundlessly. Likewise, several members of the Appleby Arrows Quidditch team were flying through pictures and banners that hung from the walls, waving and smiling and occasionally dodging bludgers. A Firebolt that looked much like his own broom was propped up against a desk covered with parchment and odd trinkets like sea shells and shot glasses engraved with holiday destinations.
A handful of trophies stood on the window sill, different sizes and shapes, but they all seemed to be for a local Quidditch team called the Devonshire Dynamos. There were socks littering the floor as well as magazines - Muggle as well as Wizarding - and piled up on the desk were text books that Harry mostly recognised from school.
There was something comforting about the room, as alien as it was. He stood and flipped open the cover of the nearest book. On the inside was written 'This belongs to Harry Potter' in his own handwriting, but he had never even seen this particular book before. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but the strange inscription made him feel queasy.
Was this his bedroom? But how could it be? He'd never seen it before in his life, and all his worldly positions could fit into his school trunk. These simply weren't his things. He let the book fall shut with a snap, and rubbed his face hard with his fingertips.
And then he froze.
Something was wrong, something didn't feel right. He touched his skin again, testing it. Why did his forehead feel strange, looser or finer or some word he couldn't think of. Anxiety was welling up in him, and he looked purposefully around for a mirror. There was none, but he knew some of the wardrobes in the Weasley's house had them on the inside of the door, so he strode over to the wardrobe in the corner and yanked it open on both sides.
There indeed was a mirror, on the right, and Harry looked at himself for the first time since waking up in the strange room. He was wearing nothing but the patterned pyjamas, which he'd already established, so he just focused on his face, his forehead. Hurriedly, he swept his fringe away, then stood agog at what he saw.
Same pale skin, same black hair, same skinny frame.
But there was no scar.
He ran his fingers over where the jagged lightning bolt should have been, the mark that had pretty much defined his whole life. But there was nothing, not even a blemish. How could that be possible?
He could almost believe that someone might go to the trouble of kidnapping him, recreating older versions of his parents in whatever way, but his scar? There was absolutely no way to remove it. It was magical in origin, Dumbledore had explained it to him, and therefore not even wizard methods could take it away. He jabbed it again, mouth slack as he tried to wrap his mind around the fact his most important physical feature had somehow disappeared.
There was a sharp knock at the door, and Harry snapped from his frenzied thoughts to stare at the back of it. "Oi," said an unfamiliar voice. "You finished faking it yet?"
Harry wasn't sure what to do. "Erm..." he said, not very eloquently, undecided whether or not to go to the door. It didn't sound like his mum, it sounded like a girl?
The decision was made for him after a beat when the door bashed open yet again. But on the other side this time was a small girl, perhaps eleven or twelve years old, with jet black hair pulled back into a ponytail and ice blue eyes.
Harry stared. Dumfounded.
The girl had her hands on her hips and her eyebrow raised, but upon Harry's no doubt stricken face she softened and dropped her arms. "Harry are you alright?" she asked, letting the door swing to behind her. "Dad said we had to come home because mum was flipping out? Are you really ill?"
Harry felt like he'd been punched in the gut, such was the shock. Mum? Dad?
"Who are you?" he asked without really considering it, and the girl's eyes flew open.
"Oh my God," she said, stepping closer to Harry. "Have you got amnesia? I read about that, in a book, have you lost your memories?" She looked torn between horror and fascination. "Can you get them back?"
He took her in. The hair was the same shade as his, but it was the cheekbones, the curve of her nose. She was a dead spit for the red-headed woman he had woken up to.
Was this supposed to be his sister?
The concept blew his mind. A little sister? Why would someone invent that?
The man, James, had mentioned a girl's name when he was talking about getting a Healer. "Sarah?" he tried.
She blinked. "Yes?"
"You're my sister?"
She let her mouth fall open. "Uh, for almost thirteen years now, yeah."
Harry shook his head. This was the most unbelievable part of his day by far, and that was saying something. A sister? He turned and moved back to the bed, sinking into the mattress again and staring at the floor.
"Wow," said Sarah. "You really aren't right are you?" She came and sat beside him, swinging her legs were they didn't quite reach the floor.
"No," said Harry. Understatement.
"Mum said you came home late last night," said the girl called Sarah. Her tone was quiet and she was chewing on her lip. "She said you were drunk and jabbering away like an idiot, so she made you drink water and eat leftover pasta, and then you just..." She stopped swinging her feet. "Went a bit funny, and fell asleep, like you fainted or something."
She snuck a glance at Harry with her blue eyes. She wasn't wearing glasses, but he could see how she could be his sister, Lily and James' second child. Were there anymore?
"Did she say anything else?" he asked instead. Because he most definitely had not been out drinking with Terry Boot of all people, and he hadn't eaten since yesterday lunchtime. Was whoever was doing this trying to trick him into doubting his own memories? It was starting to work if they were.
Sarah shrugged. "She was worried because you wouldn't wake up. She got dad to put you in here and then she wouldn't leave. I think she slept on the floor." Sarah began swinging her feet again. "I just told them you were making a big fuss," she told him brashly, but her demeanour dropped again immediately. "I guess I was wrong?"
Harry was mesmerised by her. Having been saddled with Dudley Dursley as a cousin, he'd always considered Hermione and the Weasleys to be his siblings. But to have someone of his own flesh and blood, sitting right there...
He was getting carried away. He was almost certain this couldn't be 'real', it just wasn't possible. His parents were dead and he had no sister.
"I don't know what's happening," said Harry yet again. It was the only truthful thing he knew to say.
"Do you really have amnesia?" Sarah asked.
He considered. "Maybe," he said evasively.
Sarah raised her eyebrow. "How can you 'maybe' have amnesia?" she demanded. "You either do or you don't."
Harry looked back at her. She had a point. "Alright," he sighed. Unlike his would-be-parents, he wasn't so scared of this possible sister. Perhaps he could voice some thoughts with her? "I don't think I'm missing memories," he said, trying to chose the right words. "I think I have different ones."
Sarah frowned dubiously at him. "Like what?"
"Like," he said slowly. "Last night, before I passed out. I wasn't here." Because here is impossible, he added to himself. "I was at school, with Ron and Hermione, and then I left the Gryffindor Tower and I was in an old classroom. I, um, got a bit mad." No need to go into why, he figured. "There was a crazy storm, and the window broke. It was like being in a tornado, with flashing lights and then...nothing. It just went dark."
Sarah was staring at him, blankly. It was a mirror image of the stare Lily had given him when she'd told James he'd thought she was dead. "You were dreaming," she said simply.
Harry was taken aback by her conviction. "No," he said firmly. "I wasn't."
"How do you know?" countered Sarah. "Sometimes when you're dreaming you think you're awake."
"But," replied Harry. "You then realise you weren't when you wake up. I'm not asleep now, am I?"
Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "Duh," she said. "No, of course not. But you can't have been at school, unless you meant the Muggle one down in the village?"
Why would he mean a Muggle school? "No, Hogwarts," he said. Shouldn't that have been obvious?
"But Hogwarts is closed?" said Sarah, genuine confusion on her face. "So you can't have been there. It must have been a dream."
Harry blinked. "Closed?" She nodded. "When?"
"Um..." She counted it out on her fingers, thinking. "Three years ago."
"Why?"
"Blimey Harry, you really have been Obliterated," said Sarah aghast.
He shook his head. "I'm sure it'll come back to be," he said dismissively. "What happened at the school, tell me? It might jog my memory." He didn't care that this might all be a fabrication, he wanted to know what had happened to his home.
"Um," said Sarah, wringing her hands and looking a little fretful. "You-Know-Who attacked it, with the Death Eaters, they let out the big snake, loads of people died."
Now it was Harry's turn to stare. "You-Know-Who?" he said, using Voldemort's nick-name rather than his real one after Lily's extreme reaction earlier. "So he has come back, he's alive?" Sarah looked horrified and he held up his hands. "I know I should know," he said. "Just remind me, please?"
Sarah snapped her mouth closed. "Yeah, of course he's alive, but he never went anywhere. And Dumbledore almost killed them both getting him to leave the school." She shrugged. "That's what dad said anyway."
Harry chewed over that. "People," he said slowly. "Never thought he was dead before?"
Sarah snorted. "If only," she said scornfully. "He's been a bit quieter since then, but he's not dead, no way." She swallowed. "I try not to think about it, mum doesn't like me to talk about it. Like that'll somehow mean people aren't dying and disappearing." She rolled her eyes, but her voice was understandably still a little tight with fear.
Harry was pretty horrified himself. He had no scar, and Voldemort had never vanished like he should have. Worse, he was powerful enough to the point he'd attacked Hogwarts and let the Basilisk out.
"So," he prodded her. "You-Know-Who attacked the school, why?" He felt sick. "Was he going after the Muggle-borns?"
Sarah gave him a dubious look, but this time just accepted his ignorance and answered. "They stopped the Muggle-born kids going to Hogwarts ages ago. Mum says they probably don't even know they're magical." She took a deep breath and fixed him with a stare. "They killed a lot of students, whatever the reason."
"Like who?" The part of Harry's brain that kept shouting that this wasn't real, that he didn't need to worry about it was getting smaller and smaller.
"You told me about Neville," said Sarah, sitting on her hands and bopping slighting on them. He could tell she was anxious talking about this, and he felt bad, but hearing Neville's name made him flinch.
"Neville Longbottom?" he said, and she nodded. "Neville was...he died?" Again, she nodded, and Harry couldn't help but lean back, his chest tightening. Neville was dead.
"You managed to hide," she said. "Or that's what you said."
Hide? thought Harry. That didn't sound like him. He shook it off.
"What about Ron, Hermione?" he asked, but then he corrected himself. "No wait, no Muggle-borns right? At the school?"
"Not for years," said Sarah. She pulled at her ponytail. "Do you mean Ron Weasley?"
"Yes," said Harry eagerly, but the sad look on her face quashed his enthusiasm.
"I remember them," said Sarah, twisting her hair around her finger. "Redheads?"
Harry nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Were they okay, did they get hurt at the school attack? Ron, the twins?"
Sarah let her hair fall, and looked at him impatiently. "You really don't know? Are you pulling my leg?"
Harry didn't like her tone. "Tell me," he said.
"They were got," she said coldly. "Years ago, I barely remember it. They found the Dark Mark over their house. I'm not supposed to know that, but I do. Mum was so gutted." She pulled at Harry's duvet cover, and he tried to process what she was saying.
He was supposed to believe he was in a world where his parents were alive, and so was Voldemort, but the Weasleys were dead? All of them?
"This is a nightmare," said Harry.
"I'm sorry," said Sarah.
Harry scoffed. "It's not your fault, I'm sure." But he couldn't say he wasn't perplexed. What kind of scam was this, how complex was it going to get?
The door swung open again, and Harry wondered if anyone around here had any real concept of personal space. It was Lily, or the woman that looked like her at any rate, and she looked pleased until she spotted Sarah. "Uh," she said. "I thought you were putting your broom away and tending to the owls?" she said with a raise of an eyebrow.
Sarah's mouth popped open slightly, before she clicked it back. "I was just checking if Harry wanted to help, seeing as he's awake and no one bothered to tell me."
"That's enough from you," said Lily, shooing her off the bed, but Sarah stood her ground, waiting for Harry, or so it seemed. Lily rolled her eyes, just like Sarah had.
"Okay, you can take him outside for a moment, the air might do him good." She hooked a dressing gown off the end of the bed and held it out for Harry to take. "I've got in touch with Dr Jaisun," she told him as he pulled the robe on. "He'll be here within the hour."
"Okay," said Harry evenly as she held out a pair of grey, fluffy slippers for his feet.
"If you feel light-headed I want you to come straight back in, okay?"
Harry nodded, and Sarah took that as a decision made. "Come on," she said, excitedly. "Hedwig just got back from Ireland, she might have a message for you."
Harry blinked as she yanked him to his feet. Hedwig?
"What?"