Experiment
No, this isn't one of those crazy experiments that everyone in elementary school claimed I did in my secret laboratory that I accessed from a secret elevator in the back of my closet (no joke, people seriously believe this).
Mostly just tring to figure out if I know how to properly manage this LJ cut thing.
Helen pushed the paper closer to the boy, speaking gently. He was curled up in the chair, just staring at her with those big green eyes of his. Helen would have hugged him, would have held him and whispered that everything was going to be okay, but the boy refused to be touched. Helen smiled softly, pointing at the box of crayons.
“It's okay if you don't want to talk, Harry. You don't have to, and we won't try to make you, alright? We just want to know what happened, so we can help you. Maybe you should draw a picture of what happened. That way you wouldn't have to say anything, but we can figure this out.” Harry just stared at her, looking deep into her eyes as if trying to find a hidden message there. She kept her expression calm, tried to appear warm and comforting, but inside she was crying. Only five years old, and already parent-less. And to be orphaned on his birthday, no less! The poor boy, with his pale face and sad eyes.
He slowly reached for one of the crayons with a trembling hand. Helen continued smiling, nodding in encouragement. He set the green crayon against the parchment, holding it awkwardly, as if he had never coloured with a thick crayon before. He drew a single line, then paused. He looked at Helen, who widened her smile an inch. He drew another line, right next to the first one. Another glance, this one quicker than the first, and then he drew another line, intersecting the first two. After that, he hesitated no longer, colouring the piece of parchment with abandon.
Helen didn't look at the picture, but instead studied the boy. He was fiercely concentrating, his tongue sticking out between his lips and his brow furrowed. His arm jerked, almost uncontrollably; he grabbed another crayon without taking his eyes off the picture, without even stopping his wild drawing. His eyes shone with tears, but none fell to stain the parchment. Helen's heart jerked, and the urge to hug the despondent child nearly overwhelmed her.
Then, as quickly as his corybantic colouring had begun, he was finished. He carefully replaced his two crayons in the box, and slid the picture across the child-sized table. Helen pulled it toward her, fighting to maintain her pleasantly neutral mien.
It was an endless field of green, a starburst of the colour, dark on the edges, fading gradually into the emerald of the boy's eyes at the center. Considering his age and materials, it was very well done.
“It's a very pretty picture, Harry. Is it grass?” The boy shook his head, sadly. “Then what is it?” He raised his hand and began to wave it around, forming they symbol of an old rune while mouthing two words.
Avada Kedavra.
Helen gasped in spite of herself, in spite of her training on how to remain collected. “I know, sweetling. That's what happened to your parents. But who did it, Harry? And what happened to you?” She reached for another sheet of parchment, but Harry moved before she could offer it to him.
Harry simply pointed at the picture again, and then he brushed aside his dark fringe, revealing an odd cut. The other Healers, the ones who had brought Harry to her when he refused to say a single word, had told her about it. Magic could not seal it, could not so much as stem the flow of blood. It was still bleeding; as she watched a drop of blood rolled down his face, a bloody tear. A bandage would not stay over it, nothing could cover it. And the wound, shaped like a lightning bolt, reeked of Dark magic.
“Wo- would you like something to, to eat?” she finally managed to ask, tremulous smile back in place. Harry didn't move. “I'll go get you some Chocolate Frogs, how does that sound?” She didn't wait for his response, fleeing the room to the bright lights of the main pediatric ward. She shut the door firmly behind her, sliding down the cool wood surface, her face buried in her hands.
“Helen? How did it go, what did he say?” She tried to force her hands to quit their trembling, and fought to stop her legs from collapsing altogether.
“The Killing Curse,” she gasped, pressing her hands against her chest, “someone cast the Killing Curse on that poor little boy.”
“But there were only the two bodies. What are you talking about?”
“Harry Potter. Someone cast the Killing Curse at Harry Potter. And he... survived...”
“Hello again, Harry.” Helen crouched down so that she could look him in the eyes. He shied away, pushing his chair back from the table with the crayons and parchment, eyes wild, darting from side to side.
“Shh... it's okay. Look, I'll stay right here.” She moved to sit on the other side of the table, placing her wand in front of her. “And I don't have my wand, either. I don't want to hurt you, Harry.” If anything else, this only frightened the boy more, his body trembling as he rocked back and forth, refusing to even look at her.
“I think we know what happened, Harry, and I think you're a very brave little boy.” At that his brow furrowed, and Helen could imagine his response if he would talk. “Well, perhaps not so little. But still very, very brave.” He uncurled a bit, one incredibly green eye poking out from between his arms, half covered with his dark fringe. “You don't have to say anything, but we want to help you. Do you need anything? Oh!” She reached into her pocket slowly, pulling out a chocolate frog. “Here you go; I did promise you some chocolate, didn't I?”
He snatched at the sweet, unwrapping it quickly and biting into it before the animation charms could even activate. He almost smiled at her, quiveringly, and pulled his chair in to the table once more, offering her the card.
“Thank you,” she told him, not at all startled when he withdrew his hand almost before she held the card in her hand. “But you can have it, if you want it. I don't collect them myself. Look, it's Dumbledore!”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. His face reddened and crumpled almost immediately, one arm sweeping out to knock aside the box of crayons. He cried, the first time he uttered a single sound since she had brought him into her office. The poor boy stuffed his fist into his mouth to muffle the sobs, trying to shrink down into his chair and disappear.
She couldn't ignore this. No matter that he didn't want to be touched; he was a child, and he was in pain. And his mother wasn't there to do it for him.
Helen picked him up quickly, holding him in her arms and swaying from side to side as he sobbed into her shoulder. She found herself crying, too; everything she tried to do for him just made everything that much worse. Muttering soothing noises through her own tears, she wiped away his.
“Mummy.”
That was all he said. Helen froze, afraid to move, hoping that he would speak now, hoping that he hadn't mistaken her for his mother, which would tear his heart (and hers) into even more pieces.
“I want my mummy,” he informed her, the tears suddenly gone. “And daddy. And... and I want my uncle!” The tears were back then, more painful than before, with an edge of self-loathing that she'd never seen in a child so young.
“Harry...” she started to say, but trailed off, unable to finish. She'd dealt with hurting children for years, helping them recover from abuse or trauma or anything else, but nothing like this. Nothing even close to this. She sighed, looking at his pale, drawn face, and did the one thing she'd been told to never, ever do.
She told him the truth. “I don't know what to do, Harry,” she informed him, making sure to look into his eyes the entire time. “I don't know what to tell you, what to do to make everything better. I don't know that I can make everything better. But if I could, I would. You seem very intelligent, and I don't know if that will make things easier for you or harder. I hope it makes things easier, but I don't know. Your mum and dad are dead. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.” Harry nodded, not surprised, but for some inexplicable reason the tension in his face eased slightly. “I don't know what's best for you, what you need. But tell me what you want, and I'll try to make it happen.”
He did smile at her, then, and the pure relief and joy in expression made her answering grin genuine.
Helen walked briskly through the halls of St. Mungo's, afraid that if she paced herself too slowly she would lose her courage or someone would try to stop her. She pulled Harry into the lift with her, hoping that her lime green healer's robes would stop all the inquisitive stares. They didn't, of course, especially when she pressed a button that hadn't been visible to any of the other lift occupants a moment before (though Harry seemed unsurprised).
“Morgue,” the lift announced solemnly, doors sliding open with a clang. Harry followed her out of the lift, matching her brisk pace. In contrast to the bright white hallways of the upper floors of St. Mungo's, the basement level was poorly lit with flickering torches and mould dripped down the stone walls. The dead, after all, didn't care, and the hospital administration thought that whatever donations they managed to procure were better used elsewhere.
Reaching the end of the corridor, she flashed her healer's badge at the two aurors standing guard outside the morgue, impatiently flinging the swinging doors out of her way. She took a step forward, but stopped quickly when Harry's hand left her own.
“Hold on there, love,” one of the aurors advised her, holding Harry gently by the wrist. “He can't go in there.”
“Someone needs to identify the bodies,” she informed him, snatching Harry back, glad she'd managed to contrive an excuse on the way down. “And unless you know anyone who's seen the Potter's in years, it's got to be him. Correct identification of bodies is crucial, and you know very well how many times they've bollixed that up.”
“Doesn't matter. How old is he, three? You don't take a baby in to see that.”
“I'm five! And I'm not a baby!” Harry protested, walking towards the doors himself, not at all mollified by the auror's condescending “of course not.”
“He's right,” Helen confirmed, determined that Harry would have this, the least she could give him. “No one who's seen their parents killed in front of them is a baby. And he deserves the chance to see them and say good-bye.”
“That what you want, kid?” the other Auror asked. “I don't think you'll like it much.” Harry simply jutted out his chin and nodded, face set in a stubborn expression. “Alright. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry.” He held open the door for them, bowing briefly.
“You can't do that, mate! There're rules, here!” the first auror argued, though he made no move to stop the healer and her charge from entering.
“And I outrank you, Constable. And here, in the hospital, she outranks me. She's a Healer, and she'll do what's best for the kid. They're sworn to do no harm.”
“I'm reporting this, Williamson! Just wait until the Gaffer hears about this, eh?”
Helen didn't hear the other's reply as the door swung shut on their argument, her eyes solely on Harry. In front of him, on two slabs of stone etched with various runes, were the bodies of his parents. He stopped, his gaze distant and yet focused all at the same time, breathing heavily.
“You just do what you need to do,” she told him, withdrawing silently.
Slowly, he crept up to the stones, standing on his toes in order to look into their faces. So many expressions flashed over his face so quickly that she couldn't honestly say his expression had changed at all from its fiercely controlled, stoic mask. Moments passed, but he didn't move, didn't say anything, just stared.
“I'm sorry.”
That was all he whispered, so quietly that Helen wasn't even sure she heard him correctly. She opened her mouth to correct him, to tell him that this wasn't his fault, despite her silent vow not to interfere. But he just stayed there, head bowed, but shoulders lifting slightly, so she stayed her tongue. Maybe this would help. How was she to know? Books could tell you everything, she realised, except for what was really important. He reached up to lay his tiny hand on his mother's, struggling not to cry.
“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, woman?” a rough voice interrupted, accompanied by the bang of the swinging doors as they slammed into the wall. “This is a morgue, not a fecking nursery!” Helen tried to glare at the man who had stormed in, interrupting Harry's healing. He was tall and dark, his face unsuited for the dark frown that curled his lips.
“I think that I'm trying to give him what he needs. And if what he needs is to say good-bye to his parents, even if they're in this disgusting morgue, than that's what he's going to get. So what the bloody hell,” she queried, shocking herself at her disrespectful tone (he had to be an auror) and language, “do you think you're doing, man, in interrupting him? This is a morgue not a fecking quidditch match!” The two aurors who previously guarded the doors were peering in around the newcomer's broad shoulders, Williamson smirking at her in silent appreciation as he pushed his long ponytail off his shoulder. The other one was smirking at her in obvious triumph.
“He can't possibly be here to identify the bodies,” he informed her smugly. “They hadn't got any children alive, love. Gaffer says so.”
“How dare you-”
“Their son is dead! He's dead, and you're letting some little punk poke around their corpses!” Gaffer (which was an odd name, considering how young he appeared) snarled, grabbing roughly at her arm and shoving her to the side. “Get away from them, you fuh-”
He faltered, then, as Harry turned to face him, seeming to notice the intrusion for the first time. His eyes were mostly dry, though the red in them far overpowered any white, contrasting sharply with his too-green irises.
“Leave!” he commanded imperiously, though it was with a powerful rage, not the impotent tantrum of a child. “Get out!” he screamed, thrusting his hand forward, fingers splayed. Gaffer flew backwards, out of the swinging doors, knocking over the other aurors. The metal doors swung wildly back and forth, revealing short glimpses of the three men struggling to their feet.
Harry didn't care, turning back to his parents and whispering something to them once more. His back stiffened when Gaffer limped through the doors, though he didn't turn around. Helen moved to stand between the two, arms raised to fend off the monster who interrupted Harry in his bereavement.
“Harry?” the man asked in a strangled, almost inaudible voice, his jaw lax and eyes wide. “I... you... Harry?”
Harry's fists clenched into tight balls, whole body trembling as he spun around to meet Gaffer's gaze. “Go. Away.”
“Harry!” There was disbelief in that voice, and joy. Regret mixed with cautious hope, tone rising in pitch as he repeated the boy's name once more. He ran at Harry then, a move so quick and agile that Helen hadn't realised he'd started moving until he'd hauled the small form into the air, clutching at him in anguish. “Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry!” He called to the boy over and over again, staring at him with the intensity of the insane.
To his credit, Harry, after a moment staggering incomprehension, fought wildly. He scratched at the man's face, flailed his fists, and lashed out with his feet. Unfortunately, this only seemed to encourage the madman more.
“Oh, you're real, real, real, real, and I can touch you! Hold you! Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry!”
“Let him go!” Helen heard someone roar, startled to realise that harpy's shriek was really her own voice. Her fists joined Harry's; she ripped the trembling boy away from him, grasping him securely to her, rubbing his back in equable circles even as she bellowed at the man in front of her.
“I'll have you up before the Wizengamot, you monster! See if I don't. Disturbing the dead, frightening an already terrified child, seizing him and refusing to let him go despite his protests! Have you no decency?” Her voice shook at least as much as Harry's form, blue eyes narrowed and cold. “The poor thing's watched his parents die in front of him, somehow survived the Killing Curse, and then you just off and do that! It took me hours to get him to say even a single word- those useless physiological Healers couldn't find anything wrong with him, tried to tell me that he was just being snotty and uncooperative, because of who his parents were- and you've managed to ruin all of that!”
She'd never felt so angry, so absolutely enraged that she couldn't control it. This was an abomination; she'd become a Healer in the first place to help eradicate any of these instances of irrational torment, of children frightened for no reason other than the adult thought they knew what was best, enduring through the derision of her colleagues for trying Muggle methods on her patients. If it didn't involve a wand and a fancy incantation, it clearly was beneath their notice. You couldn't perform legilimency on a child if you wanted to fix him; you'd only succeed in fracturing their mind more. And just because he was some one-off arsehole excuse for an auror, he felt the need to just rush in, so sure that he knew what the hell was going on, when he so clearly didn't.
It wasn't until she stopped, panting harshly, that she realised she'd screamed it all. Williamson had Gaffer by the shoulders, hauling him back as he gaped and stammered shook his head from side to side.
“I think it's time for you to leave, Inspector Black,” he suggested in a commanding tone. “You've done more than your share of damage for the week. And to a child. No matter what his parents may have had on their arms, he's still a child.”
“They aren't Death Eaters!” he snarled, lunging towards the quailing Harry with snapping teeth. “I don't care what disgusting mark they have on their arms, James and Lily were never Death Eaters. Never!” He collapsed, sobbing. Helen might have felt sorry for him earlier, but his anguish was nothing compared to Harry's.
“Shh, sweetling,” she murmured in his ear. “He won't get at you again.” She shifted his position, cradling him in her arms despite the fact that he was much too large for her to do so comfortably, randomly humming, rocking him back and forth. “I won't let him anywhere near you.”
Mostly just tring to figure out if I know how to properly manage this LJ cut thing.
Helen pushed the paper closer to the boy, speaking gently. He was curled up in the chair, just staring at her with those big green eyes of his. Helen would have hugged him, would have held him and whispered that everything was going to be okay, but the boy refused to be touched. Helen smiled softly, pointing at the box of crayons.
“It's okay if you don't want to talk, Harry. You don't have to, and we won't try to make you, alright? We just want to know what happened, so we can help you. Maybe you should draw a picture of what happened. That way you wouldn't have to say anything, but we can figure this out.” Harry just stared at her, looking deep into her eyes as if trying to find a hidden message there. She kept her expression calm, tried to appear warm and comforting, but inside she was crying. Only five years old, and already parent-less. And to be orphaned on his birthday, no less! The poor boy, with his pale face and sad eyes.
He slowly reached for one of the crayons with a trembling hand. Helen continued smiling, nodding in encouragement. He set the green crayon against the parchment, holding it awkwardly, as if he had never coloured with a thick crayon before. He drew a single line, then paused. He looked at Helen, who widened her smile an inch. He drew another line, right next to the first one. Another glance, this one quicker than the first, and then he drew another line, intersecting the first two. After that, he hesitated no longer, colouring the piece of parchment with abandon.
Helen didn't look at the picture, but instead studied the boy. He was fiercely concentrating, his tongue sticking out between his lips and his brow furrowed. His arm jerked, almost uncontrollably; he grabbed another crayon without taking his eyes off the picture, without even stopping his wild drawing. His eyes shone with tears, but none fell to stain the parchment. Helen's heart jerked, and the urge to hug the despondent child nearly overwhelmed her.
Then, as quickly as his corybantic colouring had begun, he was finished. He carefully replaced his two crayons in the box, and slid the picture across the child-sized table. Helen pulled it toward her, fighting to maintain her pleasantly neutral mien.
It was an endless field of green, a starburst of the colour, dark on the edges, fading gradually into the emerald of the boy's eyes at the center. Considering his age and materials, it was very well done.
“It's a very pretty picture, Harry. Is it grass?” The boy shook his head, sadly. “Then what is it?” He raised his hand and began to wave it around, forming they symbol of an old rune while mouthing two words.
Avada Kedavra.
Helen gasped in spite of herself, in spite of her training on how to remain collected. “I know, sweetling. That's what happened to your parents. But who did it, Harry? And what happened to you?” She reached for another sheet of parchment, but Harry moved before she could offer it to him.
Harry simply pointed at the picture again, and then he brushed aside his dark fringe, revealing an odd cut. The other Healers, the ones who had brought Harry to her when he refused to say a single word, had told her about it. Magic could not seal it, could not so much as stem the flow of blood. It was still bleeding; as she watched a drop of blood rolled down his face, a bloody tear. A bandage would not stay over it, nothing could cover it. And the wound, shaped like a lightning bolt, reeked of Dark magic.
“Wo- would you like something to, to eat?” she finally managed to ask, tremulous smile back in place. Harry didn't move. “I'll go get you some Chocolate Frogs, how does that sound?” She didn't wait for his response, fleeing the room to the bright lights of the main pediatric ward. She shut the door firmly behind her, sliding down the cool wood surface, her face buried in her hands.
“Helen? How did it go, what did he say?” She tried to force her hands to quit their trembling, and fought to stop her legs from collapsing altogether.
“The Killing Curse,” she gasped, pressing her hands against her chest, “someone cast the Killing Curse on that poor little boy.”
“But there were only the two bodies. What are you talking about?”
“Harry Potter. Someone cast the Killing Curse at Harry Potter. And he... survived...”
“Hello again, Harry.” Helen crouched down so that she could look him in the eyes. He shied away, pushing his chair back from the table with the crayons and parchment, eyes wild, darting from side to side.
“Shh... it's okay. Look, I'll stay right here.” She moved to sit on the other side of the table, placing her wand in front of her. “And I don't have my wand, either. I don't want to hurt you, Harry.” If anything else, this only frightened the boy more, his body trembling as he rocked back and forth, refusing to even look at her.
“I think we know what happened, Harry, and I think you're a very brave little boy.” At that his brow furrowed, and Helen could imagine his response if he would talk. “Well, perhaps not so little. But still very, very brave.” He uncurled a bit, one incredibly green eye poking out from between his arms, half covered with his dark fringe. “You don't have to say anything, but we want to help you. Do you need anything? Oh!” She reached into her pocket slowly, pulling out a chocolate frog. “Here you go; I did promise you some chocolate, didn't I?”
He snatched at the sweet, unwrapping it quickly and biting into it before the animation charms could even activate. He almost smiled at her, quiveringly, and pulled his chair in to the table once more, offering her the card.
“Thank you,” she told him, not at all startled when he withdrew his hand almost before she held the card in her hand. “But you can have it, if you want it. I don't collect them myself. Look, it's Dumbledore!”
That was apparently the wrong thing to say. His face reddened and crumpled almost immediately, one arm sweeping out to knock aside the box of crayons. He cried, the first time he uttered a single sound since she had brought him into her office. The poor boy stuffed his fist into his mouth to muffle the sobs, trying to shrink down into his chair and disappear.
She couldn't ignore this. No matter that he didn't want to be touched; he was a child, and he was in pain. And his mother wasn't there to do it for him.
Helen picked him up quickly, holding him in her arms and swaying from side to side as he sobbed into her shoulder. She found herself crying, too; everything she tried to do for him just made everything that much worse. Muttering soothing noises through her own tears, she wiped away his.
“Mummy.”
That was all he said. Helen froze, afraid to move, hoping that he would speak now, hoping that he hadn't mistaken her for his mother, which would tear his heart (and hers) into even more pieces.
“I want my mummy,” he informed her, the tears suddenly gone. “And daddy. And... and I want my uncle!” The tears were back then, more painful than before, with an edge of self-loathing that she'd never seen in a child so young.
“Harry...” she started to say, but trailed off, unable to finish. She'd dealt with hurting children for years, helping them recover from abuse or trauma or anything else, but nothing like this. Nothing even close to this. She sighed, looking at his pale, drawn face, and did the one thing she'd been told to never, ever do.
She told him the truth. “I don't know what to do, Harry,” she informed him, making sure to look into his eyes the entire time. “I don't know what to tell you, what to do to make everything better. I don't know that I can make everything better. But if I could, I would. You seem very intelligent, and I don't know if that will make things easier for you or harder. I hope it makes things easier, but I don't know. Your mum and dad are dead. I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.” Harry nodded, not surprised, but for some inexplicable reason the tension in his face eased slightly. “I don't know what's best for you, what you need. But tell me what you want, and I'll try to make it happen.”
He did smile at her, then, and the pure relief and joy in expression made her answering grin genuine.
Helen walked briskly through the halls of St. Mungo's, afraid that if she paced herself too slowly she would lose her courage or someone would try to stop her. She pulled Harry into the lift with her, hoping that her lime green healer's robes would stop all the inquisitive stares. They didn't, of course, especially when she pressed a button that hadn't been visible to any of the other lift occupants a moment before (though Harry seemed unsurprised).
“Morgue,” the lift announced solemnly, doors sliding open with a clang. Harry followed her out of the lift, matching her brisk pace. In contrast to the bright white hallways of the upper floors of St. Mungo's, the basement level was poorly lit with flickering torches and mould dripped down the stone walls. The dead, after all, didn't care, and the hospital administration thought that whatever donations they managed to procure were better used elsewhere.
Reaching the end of the corridor, she flashed her healer's badge at the two aurors standing guard outside the morgue, impatiently flinging the swinging doors out of her way. She took a step forward, but stopped quickly when Harry's hand left her own.
“Hold on there, love,” one of the aurors advised her, holding Harry gently by the wrist. “He can't go in there.”
“Someone needs to identify the bodies,” she informed him, snatching Harry back, glad she'd managed to contrive an excuse on the way down. “And unless you know anyone who's seen the Potter's in years, it's got to be him. Correct identification of bodies is crucial, and you know very well how many times they've bollixed that up.”
“Doesn't matter. How old is he, three? You don't take a baby in to see that.”
“I'm five! And I'm not a baby!” Harry protested, walking towards the doors himself, not at all mollified by the auror's condescending “of course not.”
“He's right,” Helen confirmed, determined that Harry would have this, the least she could give him. “No one who's seen their parents killed in front of them is a baby. And he deserves the chance to see them and say good-bye.”
“That what you want, kid?” the other Auror asked. “I don't think you'll like it much.” Harry simply jutted out his chin and nodded, face set in a stubborn expression. “Alright. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry.” He held open the door for them, bowing briefly.
“You can't do that, mate! There're rules, here!” the first auror argued, though he made no move to stop the healer and her charge from entering.
“And I outrank you, Constable. And here, in the hospital, she outranks me. She's a Healer, and she'll do what's best for the kid. They're sworn to do no harm.”
“I'm reporting this, Williamson! Just wait until the Gaffer hears about this, eh?”
Helen didn't hear the other's reply as the door swung shut on their argument, her eyes solely on Harry. In front of him, on two slabs of stone etched with various runes, were the bodies of his parents. He stopped, his gaze distant and yet focused all at the same time, breathing heavily.
“You just do what you need to do,” she told him, withdrawing silently.
Slowly, he crept up to the stones, standing on his toes in order to look into their faces. So many expressions flashed over his face so quickly that she couldn't honestly say his expression had changed at all from its fiercely controlled, stoic mask. Moments passed, but he didn't move, didn't say anything, just stared.
“I'm sorry.”
That was all he whispered, so quietly that Helen wasn't even sure she heard him correctly. She opened her mouth to correct him, to tell him that this wasn't his fault, despite her silent vow not to interfere. But he just stayed there, head bowed, but shoulders lifting slightly, so she stayed her tongue. Maybe this would help. How was she to know? Books could tell you everything, she realised, except for what was really important. He reached up to lay his tiny hand on his mother's, struggling not to cry.
“What the bloody hell do you think you're doing, woman?” a rough voice interrupted, accompanied by the bang of the swinging doors as they slammed into the wall. “This is a morgue, not a fecking nursery!” Helen tried to glare at the man who had stormed in, interrupting Harry's healing. He was tall and dark, his face unsuited for the dark frown that curled his lips.
“I think that I'm trying to give him what he needs. And if what he needs is to say good-bye to his parents, even if they're in this disgusting morgue, than that's what he's going to get. So what the bloody hell,” she queried, shocking herself at her disrespectful tone (he had to be an auror) and language, “do you think you're doing, man, in interrupting him? This is a morgue not a fecking quidditch match!” The two aurors who previously guarded the doors were peering in around the newcomer's broad shoulders, Williamson smirking at her in silent appreciation as he pushed his long ponytail off his shoulder. The other one was smirking at her in obvious triumph.
“He can't possibly be here to identify the bodies,” he informed her smugly. “They hadn't got any children alive, love. Gaffer says so.”
“How dare you-”
“Their son is dead! He's dead, and you're letting some little punk poke around their corpses!” Gaffer (which was an odd name, considering how young he appeared) snarled, grabbing roughly at her arm and shoving her to the side. “Get away from them, you fuh-”
He faltered, then, as Harry turned to face him, seeming to notice the intrusion for the first time. His eyes were mostly dry, though the red in them far overpowered any white, contrasting sharply with his too-green irises.
“Leave!” he commanded imperiously, though it was with a powerful rage, not the impotent tantrum of a child. “Get out!” he screamed, thrusting his hand forward, fingers splayed. Gaffer flew backwards, out of the swinging doors, knocking over the other aurors. The metal doors swung wildly back and forth, revealing short glimpses of the three men struggling to their feet.
Harry didn't care, turning back to his parents and whispering something to them once more. His back stiffened when Gaffer limped through the doors, though he didn't turn around. Helen moved to stand between the two, arms raised to fend off the monster who interrupted Harry in his bereavement.
“Harry?” the man asked in a strangled, almost inaudible voice, his jaw lax and eyes wide. “I... you... Harry?”
Harry's fists clenched into tight balls, whole body trembling as he spun around to meet Gaffer's gaze. “Go. Away.”
“Harry!” There was disbelief in that voice, and joy. Regret mixed with cautious hope, tone rising in pitch as he repeated the boy's name once more. He ran at Harry then, a move so quick and agile that Helen hadn't realised he'd started moving until he'd hauled the small form into the air, clutching at him in anguish. “Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry!” He called to the boy over and over again, staring at him with the intensity of the insane.
To his credit, Harry, after a moment staggering incomprehension, fought wildly. He scratched at the man's face, flailed his fists, and lashed out with his feet. Unfortunately, this only seemed to encourage the madman more.
“Oh, you're real, real, real, real, and I can touch you! Hold you! Oh, Harry, Harry, Harry!”
“Let him go!” Helen heard someone roar, startled to realise that harpy's shriek was really her own voice. Her fists joined Harry's; she ripped the trembling boy away from him, grasping him securely to her, rubbing his back in equable circles even as she bellowed at the man in front of her.
“I'll have you up before the Wizengamot, you monster! See if I don't. Disturbing the dead, frightening an already terrified child, seizing him and refusing to let him go despite his protests! Have you no decency?” Her voice shook at least as much as Harry's form, blue eyes narrowed and cold. “The poor thing's watched his parents die in front of him, somehow survived the Killing Curse, and then you just off and do that! It took me hours to get him to say even a single word- those useless physiological Healers couldn't find anything wrong with him, tried to tell me that he was just being snotty and uncooperative, because of who his parents were- and you've managed to ruin all of that!”
She'd never felt so angry, so absolutely enraged that she couldn't control it. This was an abomination; she'd become a Healer in the first place to help eradicate any of these instances of irrational torment, of children frightened for no reason other than the adult thought they knew what was best, enduring through the derision of her colleagues for trying Muggle methods on her patients. If it didn't involve a wand and a fancy incantation, it clearly was beneath their notice. You couldn't perform legilimency on a child if you wanted to fix him; you'd only succeed in fracturing their mind more. And just because he was some one-off arsehole excuse for an auror, he felt the need to just rush in, so sure that he knew what the hell was going on, when he so clearly didn't.
It wasn't until she stopped, panting harshly, that she realised she'd screamed it all. Williamson had Gaffer by the shoulders, hauling him back as he gaped and stammered shook his head from side to side.
“I think it's time for you to leave, Inspector Black,” he suggested in a commanding tone. “You've done more than your share of damage for the week. And to a child. No matter what his parents may have had on their arms, he's still a child.”
“They aren't Death Eaters!” he snarled, lunging towards the quailing Harry with snapping teeth. “I don't care what disgusting mark they have on their arms, James and Lily were never Death Eaters. Never!” He collapsed, sobbing. Helen might have felt sorry for him earlier, but his anguish was nothing compared to Harry's.
“Shh, sweetling,” she murmured in his ear. “He won't get at you again.” She shifted his position, cradling him in her arms despite the fact that he was much too large for her to do so comfortably, randomly humming, rocking him back and forth. “I won't let him anywhere near you.”