Never Alone Chapter 1: Eyes Wide Open
“I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. I take the words, I scatter them in time and space. A message leading myself here.”
~Rose Tyler
“Parting of the Ways”
Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth…
That’s what He had called her…
But defending a planet is no easy task, and sometimes sacrifices need be made. So many sacrifices… hers was but one among hundreds. No more than anyone else’s, no less than everything she had to give. Even as she lay on the cool floor counting her last breaths she could only feel a sort of detached acceptance. Everything has a time and place… all things must eventually die. He had taught her that.
Besides, as far as she was concerned, she was already dead. Rose Tyler had died the day they had been separated forever.
Her Doctor… Wherever and whenever he was now, she willed for his continued safety. Then perhaps someday… they’d meet again.
As she made this final wish, she let go of her last breath… and with it came a soft light of pure gold that escaped into the universe. Searching…
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
April 27th, 1987
He’d done something bad again.
He didn’t understand why it was bad though. He really liked his teacher and when he’d seen that Mrs. Sullivan was going to die that afternoon in a car crash it had made him very sad. So he decided to try and warn Mrs. Sullivan. But instead of being glad for the warning Mrs. Sullivan had frowned and said, ‘That isn’t a nice thing to say.’ Not only that, but she had called his Aunt to tell her what he’d said. As soon as they had driven away from the school Aunt Petunia had reached back and cuffed his head, yelling at him about everything from the incident at school to his hair and his inability to make it lie down. She lectured him off and on all day about how it was wrong to tell lies…
Until the news came on that night. Mrs. Sullivan’s name was listed among the dead in a bad car crash that evening.
The room was silent for a whole two seconds before his uncle had leapt up from the sofa, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and thrown him forcefully into his cupboard, calling him a freak and ordering him to stay in his cupboard until they told him he could leave it.
So here was an almost 7 year old Harry Potter being punished for trying to do a good thing.
It wasn’t like he’d asked to be able to see it happen like that. In fact, he’d cried for a long time at school after it happened. So many hurt people… so many dead, staring at him blankly out of dim eyes and broken bodies…
Harry began to shake and shiver, pulling his knees up tight to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, he buried his face as he cried.
Then he heard it… the soft sound of music. It caressed his mind with the velvety feel of rose petals… and yet it sounded so sad.
‘Open your eyes.’
It was like a whisper on a soft breeze tickling at the edge of his mind. Soft… yet it held something within it he did not yet understand.
‘Open your eyes.’
And he did.
At night his cupboard was always black as pitch, but upon opening his eyes all Harry could see was light-beautiful golden light that seemed to cover all of him and warm him from the inside out. He lifted his hand to look closer. He could see the light as it moved around him, as if it were alive…
Then some of the light gathered together and separated from the rest and moved away from him slightly, moving and molding until it began to resemble something more human. As the minutes ticked by it continued thus, with Harry watching in awe… until finally it stopped.
Across from Harry now sat a beautiful young woman made completely of the golden light. She was ethereal and yet so solid harry thought he could have reached out and touched skin like his own.
The beautiful woman smiled like she could hear his thoughts. And maybe she did.
‘Hello Harry. It’s wonderful to finally speak to you.’
For a moment Harry was silent. Then he meant to ask her who she was. But what he asked was-
“What are you?”
She didn’t answer immediately, but continued to smile mysteriously. Finally she said, ‘You don’t need to worry about that just yet. It will be discussed at a later time, when you’re old enough to understand. But for now you may call me Rose.’
“Rose… How did you get in my cupboard, Rose?”
‘You brought me in here with you,’ she said.
“When?”
‘I’ve always been here… I’ve been with you now for many years. This is only the first time we’ve spoken.’
“How?” he asked again.
She seemed to weigh her words before she spoke this time, ‘I’ve been here with you since the day your parents died.’
In Harry’s mind he saw again the mysterious flash of green light from his dreams, as well as the encompassing golden light he now knew to be Rose. Whatever that green light was, she had stopped it.
“My aunt and uncle said they died in a car crash… but that’s not right, is it? It’s a lie.”
Rose said neither yes nor no. But he knew it to be the truth.
“What happened today? How do I know things…? Things I shouldn’t,” Harry asked. He was afraid-not afraid of Rose, but what her answer would be.
For the first time her smile faltered and Harry glimpsed the sadness he had felt from her before. “I know I’m little and I’m not very smart, but please tell me,” he said as desperate tears began to well up in his eyes and he closed them to try and stop himself from crying again.
He felt a warm touch on his face and he opened his eyes to see Rose gently cupping his face. ‘You are a very smart boy, believe no one who tells you differently. As for the things you have and will see… the things you know… I’m afraid that those answers lie in the nature of my being. For now you should just know that over the next few years such things are likely to come to you more often. I would spare you them if I could, but we have become almost completely intertwined. We are connected on a level beyond what the powers of this time and place have the ability to handle. We will have to wait till many years from now when finally the right Doctor arrives. And for that I am sorry. But until then I’ll do my best to help you to understand what you see.’
Harry nodded. He understood now-Rose was the reason he saw the things he shouldn’t. But he couldn’t be angry with her. She was so kind to him, and on some level he felt like she was a part of him. As long as he had her, he could handle all the things the future would bring, whether he saw them coming or not.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
September 19th, 1987
Harry closed his eyes as he swung back and forth on a swing set at the back of the park. There had been a track meet held in London proper and as one of the fastest runners in his class he’d been asked to compete. Though the idea of Harry possibly having fun on the trip seemed to grate on the nerves of the Dursleys, the prospect of being able to brag on his behalf to the neighbors was enough to win Aunt Petunia over, and thus Uncle Vernon as well. And so on the trip he went, winning 1st in both of his events. Once the meet was finally over they’d taken the kids to a nearby park for a picnic and some fun before heading home.
Harry sighed as he continued to swing, eyes closed. To an outsider he would appear to just be a little kid enjoying some peace and quiet, perhaps a little tired from the day’s events. But that was not the case.
‘We’ve been here a while… are you sure she’s coming today?’
‘Positive,’ came Rose’s ghostly reply.
He was waiting. A couple weeks previously he’d had another future glimpse. He’d seen a girl about his age with fluffy brown hair coming to this park, then being tormented by another set of kids to the point she apparently ended up lashing out with a strange power. He had immediately wanted to call it magic, but something told him that was wrong. Words, phrases and numbers he hadn’t understood ran through his head. He’d finally settled for jotting them down in a notebook in the hope that someday it would make sense. Rose had helped him quite a bit in the months before, explaining how to better understand the nature of his glimpses (past, present or future) as well as how to better pin point an exact time. But time sight ability aside, he was still only 7 years old. So at least for now, he relied upon her judgment concerning visions.
Off to the side he heard the sound of a car door closing, so he turned to observe.
The girl from his vision had just arrived. She was just as he remembered with brown hair, hazel eyes covered by large plastic frames and oversized top front teeth. It was her glasses and her teeth that would get her picked on later if he didn’t keep her away from the other side of the park. So quickly he jumped out of his swing and ran behind a set of bushes to wait until… well, he wasn’t sure what, but he figured Rose would let him know when the time was right.
The little girl ran into the park with a big smile. She stopped for a moment looking around, probably trying to decide where to run off to first. Finally she skipped over to the swings Harry had just left a moment ago, kicking her legs to try and go as high as possible. Her parents stopped for a moment to smile at her before they went to sit at a bench a little bit away but still within sight.
Harry sighed. At school all the other kids avoided him out of fear of Dudley, so he had little to no experience with other kids his age.
‘Don’t worry so much. Just go and say hi.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ thought Harry, but he got up and moved back over to the swings anyway.
He had already sat down and begun swinging by the time the girl noticed him.
“Hi! What’s your name?” she asked with a smile.
“Harry, what’s yours?”
“Hermione,” she said. “And today I turned 8! How old are you?”
“I’m… seven I think,” said Harry, blushing.
“How many candles were on your last birthday cake?” she asked.
Harry blushed harder. He’d never had a birthday cake as far as he could remember. He wasn’t even sure exactly when his birthday was, though he knew it was some time in July because that was where they put his name on the birthday board in class.
“Umm… don’t really remember. Did you just come from your party? Was it fun?” Harry asked, trying his best to distract her away from himself.
“Oh yes! There were balloons and a cake with vanilla ice cream! And my auntie made me the prettiest dress…”
He managed to keep her talking and distracted for quite a while with questions about the party and the different gifts she’d gotten from her family. And amazingly, Harry found himself having quite a bit of fun himself. It was nice talking to someone who didn’t flinch when they looked at him (Rose being the single exception).
He even thought that maybe he’d managed to avoid the confrontation he’d seen when Hermione suddenly jumped mid-swing, landing gracefully on her feet. She turned back to him with a big smile before running away shouting, “Race you to the merry-go-round!”
Harry’s heart skipped. The merry-go-round was where the mean kids were at. He quickly jumped from his own swing and ran after her, trying to reach her before she rounded the bushes and walked straight into what he’d been trying so hard to avoid.
He didn’t make it.
“Well look here-another stupid little four eyes. Do you have teeth the size of Big Ben, too?”
Three older boys were hanging over the bars of the merry-go-round. Off to the side Hermione was nervously rubbing her arms and looking like she wanted to run. Honestly, Harry thought it would make his job easier if she were a little less brave and did so.
“We just wanted to play…” Hermione muttered, fidgeting as she did so.
“Well that sounds like choice idea, what do you say chaps?” said the oldest boy of the group as he jumped down from his perch, walking over to stand over Hermione. “What say you? You want to play with us?”
“Leave her alone,” said Harry, nearly growling. It had upset him to see this occur in his vision, but seeing it happen in reality just made him angry.
“And what are you going to do about it, huh shrimp? Stamp your foot at us?” the boys laughed. “I could squish you like a bug!”
“Maybe… but some bugs sting,” said Harry.
A strange breeze passed by and ruffled Harry’s hair. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes had begun to glow with a soft golden light, causing the bullies to back away in fear.
Then simultaneously two things happened.
The strange wind kicked up blowing thick clouds of dust and dirt into the air, obscuring Harry and the boys from the eyes of Hermione or anyone else. This was very fortuitous, though Harry did not notice as he was caught within his own mind and anger.
Golden light wreathed the boy in a holy nimbus. The forces of time and space crackled and popped around Harry, begging to be unleashed on the now terror stricken bullies before him. And for once, Harry felt something he’d never felt before…
He felt powerful and in control. To the abused and neglected child, it was like cool spring water to a man in the hottest desert. And the more he experienced of it, the more of it he wanted. He could lose himself in the feeling of raw power. With this power he could right all the wrongs, control everything in time and space… even life and death.
The sun and the moon… the day and the night…
Then it began.
Harry watched as Time itself played out within his mind. Things from the past flashed by as things from possible futures flitted through between scenes. Like a computer Harry’s mind was downloading everything from the Time Vortex, absorbing the knowledge and filling his mind to bursting. He could see everything…
…all that is, all that was, all that ever could be.
Tears poured from eyes that continued to glow with barely restrained power.
“Why does it hurt? Rose…”
‘Let them go Harry! You’ll kill them!’
“What?”
‘Open your eyes!’
With eyes wide open and unseeing Harry had been blinded to what was occurring around him, being so absorbed in the sudden presence of the vortex. But finally he could see in horror that he had been suffocating the bullies before him. As the realization and remorse sunk in, the power was lifted from them and they could breathe once again, but didn’t otherwise move.
“Did I hurt them? What should I do?!” cried Harry.
‘Let me handle it.’
“But…”
‘Trust me.’
Harry gave a small nod. He trusted Rose. She would know what to do.
The light began to gather again and Harry began to panic. But it was somehow softer and gentler than the light he had been wielding before. It surrounded the boys and hovered around them for a time until all the boys disappeared with a ‘pop’.
“What did you do? Where did they go?”
‘I healed them before sending them home. I also modified their memory of the events. Now I need to take care of you.’
“I’m… fine,” said Harry with a grimace. It was a lie-his head felt like it was about to split open with everything that he had absorbed during the timeless moments he had spent gazing into the abyss.
‘No you are not. The only reason you’re still alive right now is because of your age and your connection with me. I was able to dam the flow of information to your mind, but as a consequence the connection between us has become even stronger, and it will be that much harder to separate us in the future.’
“Then what should we do?”
“I will bind the loose power within us for a time. It won’t help with the knowledge still in there or the migraine, but you won’t be a danger to anyone else or yourself. Later on tonight we’ll deal with the rest. I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you.”
The wind that had hidden all the events from view finally dropped off to a breeze as Harry fell to the ground in a heap. He could vaguely hear the sound of Hermione calling his name before he blacked out from the pain in his head.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The first thing Harry noticed as he woke was that his head hurt significantly less than it had when he had passed out in the park. The second was that he was lying on a bed rather than the pallet in his cupboard. Third was an unfamiliar smell he could only describe as ‘clean’.
He opened his eyes.
He had never been in one, but it appeared to Harry that he was in a hospital room. He let his head fall back onto the pillow with a sigh that bordered on a growl of frustration. He’d passed out while on a school trip, of course they’d taken him to be checked over at a clinic. The Dursleys were not going to be pleased.
When he heard the door open he’d half expected to see Uncle Vernon storming into the room in a rage to drag him home. Instead it was a doctor in a white coat who smiled as he walked over to the bed.
“Hello Harry, I’m glad to see you awake. Despite having no physical damage to speak of you were unconscious for almost 3 hours. How are you feeling now?”
“My head hurts, but not as much as it did when I fell in the park,” said Harry.
“Yes, you definitely hit your head at some point, but it wasn’t so hard a hit to cause any worry, so the pain should go away soon. The school official who brought you in gave us permission to give you medicine to help with the pain so that is helping as well,” said the doctor. “We contacted your parents-“
“They’re not my parents,” said Harry tonelessly.
The doctor paused after Harry’s interruption. He pursed his lips as he surveyed the boy. “Harry, I wanted to ask… How are things at home? Do your… guardians treat you alright?”
Harry’s hands clutched the blankets piled on top of him as his heart raced. What should he say? ‘No, I’m lucky if I get two small meals a day and my room is a dusty and moldy cupboard. Until the age of 6 I thought my name was either ‘Boy’ or ‘Freak’. To this day I’m not even sure when my birthday is.’ He rather thought not. He was 7, not stupid. No matter what he said, he’d have to go home with the Dursleys tonight and they were going to be livid as it was. So instead-
“I’m fine,” he said.
The doctor stared at him for a moment longer, likely taking in the poorly nourished and cowed figure of his small self. But with nothing from Harry to go on, there was little he could do.
“Very well, the lady we contacted said she’d be here to pick you up shortly. In the mean time, you have guests.”
“Guests?” asked Harry curiously. Who did he know that would visit him in the hospital?
~Rose Tyler
“Parting of the Ways”
Rose Tyler, Defender of the Earth…
That’s what He had called her…
But defending a planet is no easy task, and sometimes sacrifices need be made. So many sacrifices… hers was but one among hundreds. No more than anyone else’s, no less than everything she had to give. Even as she lay on the cool floor counting her last breaths she could only feel a sort of detached acceptance. Everything has a time and place… all things must eventually die. He had taught her that.
Besides, as far as she was concerned, she was already dead. Rose Tyler had died the day they had been separated forever.
Her Doctor… Wherever and whenever he was now, she willed for his continued safety. Then perhaps someday… they’d meet again.
As she made this final wish, she let go of her last breath… and with it came a soft light of pure gold that escaped into the universe. Searching…
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
April 27th, 1987
He’d done something bad again.
He didn’t understand why it was bad though. He really liked his teacher and when he’d seen that Mrs. Sullivan was going to die that afternoon in a car crash it had made him very sad. So he decided to try and warn Mrs. Sullivan. But instead of being glad for the warning Mrs. Sullivan had frowned and said, ‘That isn’t a nice thing to say.’ Not only that, but she had called his Aunt to tell her what he’d said. As soon as they had driven away from the school Aunt Petunia had reached back and cuffed his head, yelling at him about everything from the incident at school to his hair and his inability to make it lie down. She lectured him off and on all day about how it was wrong to tell lies…
Until the news came on that night. Mrs. Sullivan’s name was listed among the dead in a bad car crash that evening.
The room was silent for a whole two seconds before his uncle had leapt up from the sofa, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and thrown him forcefully into his cupboard, calling him a freak and ordering him to stay in his cupboard until they told him he could leave it.
So here was an almost 7 year old Harry Potter being punished for trying to do a good thing.
It wasn’t like he’d asked to be able to see it happen like that. In fact, he’d cried for a long time at school after it happened. So many hurt people… so many dead, staring at him blankly out of dim eyes and broken bodies…
Harry began to shake and shiver, pulling his knees up tight to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, he buried his face as he cried.
Then he heard it… the soft sound of music. It caressed his mind with the velvety feel of rose petals… and yet it sounded so sad.
‘Open your eyes.’
It was like a whisper on a soft breeze tickling at the edge of his mind. Soft… yet it held something within it he did not yet understand.
‘Open your eyes.’
And he did.
At night his cupboard was always black as pitch, but upon opening his eyes all Harry could see was light-beautiful golden light that seemed to cover all of him and warm him from the inside out. He lifted his hand to look closer. He could see the light as it moved around him, as if it were alive…
Then some of the light gathered together and separated from the rest and moved away from him slightly, moving and molding until it began to resemble something more human. As the minutes ticked by it continued thus, with Harry watching in awe… until finally it stopped.
Across from Harry now sat a beautiful young woman made completely of the golden light. She was ethereal and yet so solid harry thought he could have reached out and touched skin like his own.
The beautiful woman smiled like she could hear his thoughts. And maybe she did.
‘Hello Harry. It’s wonderful to finally speak to you.’
For a moment Harry was silent. Then he meant to ask her who she was. But what he asked was-
“What are you?”
She didn’t answer immediately, but continued to smile mysteriously. Finally she said, ‘You don’t need to worry about that just yet. It will be discussed at a later time, when you’re old enough to understand. But for now you may call me Rose.’
“Rose… How did you get in my cupboard, Rose?”
‘You brought me in here with you,’ she said.
“When?”
‘I’ve always been here… I’ve been with you now for many years. This is only the first time we’ve spoken.’
“How?” he asked again.
She seemed to weigh her words before she spoke this time, ‘I’ve been here with you since the day your parents died.’
In Harry’s mind he saw again the mysterious flash of green light from his dreams, as well as the encompassing golden light he now knew to be Rose. Whatever that green light was, she had stopped it.
“My aunt and uncle said they died in a car crash… but that’s not right, is it? It’s a lie.”
Rose said neither yes nor no. But he knew it to be the truth.
“What happened today? How do I know things…? Things I shouldn’t,” Harry asked. He was afraid-not afraid of Rose, but what her answer would be.
For the first time her smile faltered and Harry glimpsed the sadness he had felt from her before. “I know I’m little and I’m not very smart, but please tell me,” he said as desperate tears began to well up in his eyes and he closed them to try and stop himself from crying again.
He felt a warm touch on his face and he opened his eyes to see Rose gently cupping his face. ‘You are a very smart boy, believe no one who tells you differently. As for the things you have and will see… the things you know… I’m afraid that those answers lie in the nature of my being. For now you should just know that over the next few years such things are likely to come to you more often. I would spare you them if I could, but we have become almost completely intertwined. We are connected on a level beyond what the powers of this time and place have the ability to handle. We will have to wait till many years from now when finally the right Doctor arrives. And for that I am sorry. But until then I’ll do my best to help you to understand what you see.’
Harry nodded. He understood now-Rose was the reason he saw the things he shouldn’t. But he couldn’t be angry with her. She was so kind to him, and on some level he felt like she was a part of him. As long as he had her, he could handle all the things the future would bring, whether he saw them coming or not.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
September 19th, 1987
Harry closed his eyes as he swung back and forth on a swing set at the back of the park. There had been a track meet held in London proper and as one of the fastest runners in his class he’d been asked to compete. Though the idea of Harry possibly having fun on the trip seemed to grate on the nerves of the Dursleys, the prospect of being able to brag on his behalf to the neighbors was enough to win Aunt Petunia over, and thus Uncle Vernon as well. And so on the trip he went, winning 1st in both of his events. Once the meet was finally over they’d taken the kids to a nearby park for a picnic and some fun before heading home.
Harry sighed as he continued to swing, eyes closed. To an outsider he would appear to just be a little kid enjoying some peace and quiet, perhaps a little tired from the day’s events. But that was not the case.
‘We’ve been here a while… are you sure she’s coming today?’
‘Positive,’ came Rose’s ghostly reply.
He was waiting. A couple weeks previously he’d had another future glimpse. He’d seen a girl about his age with fluffy brown hair coming to this park, then being tormented by another set of kids to the point she apparently ended up lashing out with a strange power. He had immediately wanted to call it magic, but something told him that was wrong. Words, phrases and numbers he hadn’t understood ran through his head. He’d finally settled for jotting them down in a notebook in the hope that someday it would make sense. Rose had helped him quite a bit in the months before, explaining how to better understand the nature of his glimpses (past, present or future) as well as how to better pin point an exact time. But time sight ability aside, he was still only 7 years old. So at least for now, he relied upon her judgment concerning visions.
Off to the side he heard the sound of a car door closing, so he turned to observe.
The girl from his vision had just arrived. She was just as he remembered with brown hair, hazel eyes covered by large plastic frames and oversized top front teeth. It was her glasses and her teeth that would get her picked on later if he didn’t keep her away from the other side of the park. So quickly he jumped out of his swing and ran behind a set of bushes to wait until… well, he wasn’t sure what, but he figured Rose would let him know when the time was right.
The little girl ran into the park with a big smile. She stopped for a moment looking around, probably trying to decide where to run off to first. Finally she skipped over to the swings Harry had just left a moment ago, kicking her legs to try and go as high as possible. Her parents stopped for a moment to smile at her before they went to sit at a bench a little bit away but still within sight.
Harry sighed. At school all the other kids avoided him out of fear of Dudley, so he had little to no experience with other kids his age.
‘Don’t worry so much. Just go and say hi.’
‘Easy for you to say,’ thought Harry, but he got up and moved back over to the swings anyway.
He had already sat down and begun swinging by the time the girl noticed him.
“Hi! What’s your name?” she asked with a smile.
“Harry, what’s yours?”
“Hermione,” she said. “And today I turned 8! How old are you?”
“I’m… seven I think,” said Harry, blushing.
“How many candles were on your last birthday cake?” she asked.
Harry blushed harder. He’d never had a birthday cake as far as he could remember. He wasn’t even sure exactly when his birthday was, though he knew it was some time in July because that was where they put his name on the birthday board in class.
“Umm… don’t really remember. Did you just come from your party? Was it fun?” Harry asked, trying his best to distract her away from himself.
“Oh yes! There were balloons and a cake with vanilla ice cream! And my auntie made me the prettiest dress…”
He managed to keep her talking and distracted for quite a while with questions about the party and the different gifts she’d gotten from her family. And amazingly, Harry found himself having quite a bit of fun himself. It was nice talking to someone who didn’t flinch when they looked at him (Rose being the single exception).
He even thought that maybe he’d managed to avoid the confrontation he’d seen when Hermione suddenly jumped mid-swing, landing gracefully on her feet. She turned back to him with a big smile before running away shouting, “Race you to the merry-go-round!”
Harry’s heart skipped. The merry-go-round was where the mean kids were at. He quickly jumped from his own swing and ran after her, trying to reach her before she rounded the bushes and walked straight into what he’d been trying so hard to avoid.
He didn’t make it.
“Well look here-another stupid little four eyes. Do you have teeth the size of Big Ben, too?”
Three older boys were hanging over the bars of the merry-go-round. Off to the side Hermione was nervously rubbing her arms and looking like she wanted to run. Honestly, Harry thought it would make his job easier if she were a little less brave and did so.
“We just wanted to play…” Hermione muttered, fidgeting as she did so.
“Well that sounds like choice idea, what do you say chaps?” said the oldest boy of the group as he jumped down from his perch, walking over to stand over Hermione. “What say you? You want to play with us?”
“Leave her alone,” said Harry, nearly growling. It had upset him to see this occur in his vision, but seeing it happen in reality just made him angry.
“And what are you going to do about it, huh shrimp? Stamp your foot at us?” the boys laughed. “I could squish you like a bug!”
“Maybe… but some bugs sting,” said Harry.
A strange breeze passed by and ruffled Harry’s hair. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes had begun to glow with a soft golden light, causing the bullies to back away in fear.
Then simultaneously two things happened.
The strange wind kicked up blowing thick clouds of dust and dirt into the air, obscuring Harry and the boys from the eyes of Hermione or anyone else. This was very fortuitous, though Harry did not notice as he was caught within his own mind and anger.
Golden light wreathed the boy in a holy nimbus. The forces of time and space crackled and popped around Harry, begging to be unleashed on the now terror stricken bullies before him. And for once, Harry felt something he’d never felt before…
He felt powerful and in control. To the abused and neglected child, it was like cool spring water to a man in the hottest desert. And the more he experienced of it, the more of it he wanted. He could lose himself in the feeling of raw power. With this power he could right all the wrongs, control everything in time and space… even life and death.
The sun and the moon… the day and the night…
Then it began.
Harry watched as Time itself played out within his mind. Things from the past flashed by as things from possible futures flitted through between scenes. Like a computer Harry’s mind was downloading everything from the Time Vortex, absorbing the knowledge and filling his mind to bursting. He could see everything…
…all that is, all that was, all that ever could be.
Tears poured from eyes that continued to glow with barely restrained power.
“Why does it hurt? Rose…”
‘Let them go Harry! You’ll kill them!’
“What?”
‘Open your eyes!’
With eyes wide open and unseeing Harry had been blinded to what was occurring around him, being so absorbed in the sudden presence of the vortex. But finally he could see in horror that he had been suffocating the bullies before him. As the realization and remorse sunk in, the power was lifted from them and they could breathe once again, but didn’t otherwise move.
“Did I hurt them? What should I do?!” cried Harry.
‘Let me handle it.’
“But…”
‘Trust me.’
Harry gave a small nod. He trusted Rose. She would know what to do.
The light began to gather again and Harry began to panic. But it was somehow softer and gentler than the light he had been wielding before. It surrounded the boys and hovered around them for a time until all the boys disappeared with a ‘pop’.
“What did you do? Where did they go?”
‘I healed them before sending them home. I also modified their memory of the events. Now I need to take care of you.’
“I’m… fine,” said Harry with a grimace. It was a lie-his head felt like it was about to split open with everything that he had absorbed during the timeless moments he had spent gazing into the abyss.
‘No you are not. The only reason you’re still alive right now is because of your age and your connection with me. I was able to dam the flow of information to your mind, but as a consequence the connection between us has become even stronger, and it will be that much harder to separate us in the future.’
“Then what should we do?”
“I will bind the loose power within us for a time. It won’t help with the knowledge still in there or the migraine, but you won’t be a danger to anyone else or yourself. Later on tonight we’ll deal with the rest. I’m sorry, but that’s the best I can do.”
“Thank you.”
The wind that had hidden all the events from view finally dropped off to a breeze as Harry fell to the ground in a heap. He could vaguely hear the sound of Hermione calling his name before he blacked out from the pain in his head.
0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
The first thing Harry noticed as he woke was that his head hurt significantly less than it had when he had passed out in the park. The second was that he was lying on a bed rather than the pallet in his cupboard. Third was an unfamiliar smell he could only describe as ‘clean’.
He opened his eyes.
He had never been in one, but it appeared to Harry that he was in a hospital room. He let his head fall back onto the pillow with a sigh that bordered on a growl of frustration. He’d passed out while on a school trip, of course they’d taken him to be checked over at a clinic. The Dursleys were not going to be pleased.
When he heard the door open he’d half expected to see Uncle Vernon storming into the room in a rage to drag him home. Instead it was a doctor in a white coat who smiled as he walked over to the bed.
“Hello Harry, I’m glad to see you awake. Despite having no physical damage to speak of you were unconscious for almost 3 hours. How are you feeling now?”
“My head hurts, but not as much as it did when I fell in the park,” said Harry.
“Yes, you definitely hit your head at some point, but it wasn’t so hard a hit to cause any worry, so the pain should go away soon. The school official who brought you in gave us permission to give you medicine to help with the pain so that is helping as well,” said the doctor. “We contacted your parents-“
“They’re not my parents,” said Harry tonelessly.
The doctor paused after Harry’s interruption. He pursed his lips as he surveyed the boy. “Harry, I wanted to ask… How are things at home? Do your… guardians treat you alright?”
Harry’s hands clutched the blankets piled on top of him as his heart raced. What should he say? ‘No, I’m lucky if I get two small meals a day and my room is a dusty and moldy cupboard. Until the age of 6 I thought my name was either ‘Boy’ or ‘Freak’. To this day I’m not even sure when my birthday is.’ He rather thought not. He was 7, not stupid. No matter what he said, he’d have to go home with the Dursleys tonight and they were going to be livid as it was. So instead-
“I’m fine,” he said.
The doctor stared at him for a moment longer, likely taking in the poorly nourished and cowed figure of his small self. But with nothing from Harry to go on, there was little he could do.
“Very well, the lady we contacted said she’d be here to pick you up shortly. In the mean time, you have guests.”
“Guests?” asked Harry curiously. Who did he know that would visit him in the hospital?