Psychosis; an abnormal condition of the mind, a generic psychiatric term for a mental state often described as involving a "loss of contact with reality".
-NOPD-
In March of 1985, two weeks after the discovery of Maggie O'Donnell's corpse, Nathan Surge is convicted for her murder and the abduction of 18 other women in the greater Surrey area.
The shire breathes a sigh of relief at the perpetrator behind bars and around the county, single women are once again roaming the streets unescorted, no longer fearful for their lives.
-NOPD-
At five years old, Harry Potter is a quiet child by nature, more prone to sitting meekly on the side rather than joining in the revelry of his fellow children. He keeps his mouth shut, as he has been reprimanded to do so in the past. He does not ask questions, as he has been taught to. He is perfectly aware that he is a waste of space that will ultimately amount to nothing, as he has been told his entire life. Harry Potter is a perfectly passive child; and he has been conditioned to be this way since his arrival at the Dursley abode.
There is no anger when he sees that Dudley is treated better than he. There is no hate at the sight of other happy children with loving parents. Throughout it all, there is only a deep set resignation tempered by apathy.
-NOPD-
"You useless boy!" Vernon shouts, neck purpling in rage.
"'m sorry. I didn't mean to." Harry whispers to his feet, refusing to make eye contact.
It doesn't appease the larger man as he snatches Harry's smaller arm in a bruising grip and drags him, without regard, onto the back porch.
"You better make yourself scarce, freak!"
At this, Harry does make eye contact; because he can't quite believe that he's being asked to fend for himself in the twilight hours of the fading day. The street lights have already flickered into existence and in just an hour, darkness will blanket the street. Despite the numerous times his Uncle had thrown him bodily out of the house, Harry has never been forced to leave this close to night.
"Well, what are you waiting for?!" Vernon's hiss is met with nothing but a blank stare from the younger child and it should have come as no surprise when the back door is slammed in Harry's face.
He stays in the backyard only long enough to hear the slamming of doors and the revving of an engine as the Dursley's drive off to their dinner destination. The evening chill settles in through his thin clothes and he only stays on Privet Drive long enough to wander down the road to the end of the street. He takes Magnolia Crescent heading south, though his child mind does not comprehend this direction at all. He is one of few on the streets this late and he is given more than a few concerned and passing glances by the adults that either pass or see him from afar.
The sound of his tiny feet hitting pavement is the only real sound that Harry actively listens for. The rest of the world falls behind him in an easy routine born of habitual repetition.
The playground is situated three blocks over from Magnolia Crescent, but this is not Harry's eventual destination; it is instead the small forest that bounded Southern Surrey.
When his tiny feet finally stumble through the thicket of tree's that separate the playground from the forest, Harry pauses in momentary contemplation. During the day, this has always been a place of safety from children and adults alike. It is whispered from parent to child of unspeakable horrors that lurk in the shadows of this forest. Harry, has never heard these warnings; has never had anyone attempt to keep him safe. Harry is completely unaware of the danger that he is about to find himself in.
-NOPD-
Harry has a high tolerance in regards to pain. He doesn't notice when brambles from the shrubs catch against his skin, leaving tears of red in its wake. He barely spares a glance when he stumbles over a tree stump and falls knee deep into twigs and branches that dig into his legs and rip at the scabs barely healing from last weeks bout of 'Harry Hunting'.
In the vast forest that borders Southern Surrey, Harry is specifically searching for a small clearing that he has previously been familiar with.
The first inkling that Harry has that something is terribly wrong in the forst, is the complete and utter silence. There is no wind whistling through the leaves, there are no sounds of animals burrowing or hunting or birds flying overhead. The stillness of the forest makes Harry stop just short of the clearing itself and makes him hesitate from entering the small open field. He lingers at the edge of the clearing, one hand gripping into the harsh bark of a nearby tree. His eyes squint sharply into the distance, examining the trees opposite him, attempting to determine exactly what it is about this moment that makes him hesitate.
"Huh?"
Harry whispers to no one as he whirls around suddenly, fingers clutching at the front of his shirt in a nervous tick, heart beating a mile a minute. He feels as though something is watching him. He feels it in the way his neck prickles as though his very body is aware of the foreign stare that follows his tiny body.
"...ease."
Harry's heart stops suddenly in absolute terror. Maybe he's imagining it, maybe he isn't, but he swears he can hear a quiet whispering voice and feel the remnants of a lingering stare.
"... el... ee..."
Harry knows he shouldn't, knows that he should turn around and walk back to the park, to Magnolia Crescent, to Privet Drive, to the Dursley's. He doesn't know it exactly, but it is a morbid curiosity that drives his feet, instead, in the opposite direction.
Harry has only barely taken ten paces before he freezes suddenly, hands clapping over his ears in startled alarm. The high pitched whilstling and screeching drumming through his ears makes him falter and just as suddenly as it had started, it also stopped just moments later. Terror begins to blossom in Harry's pounding chest but he doesn't let this stop him. In this moment, he does not act as a typical child of five years and it is, in no small part, thanks to the Dursley's.
-NOPD-
It takes Harry half an hour before he finally reaches the voice. It is a half hour of alternate moments of crippling silence and the deafening din of screeches and whistling and hissing and screams. It is a half hour of scrambling through thickets and copses and tumbling over fallen branches and logs. It is the longest half hour of Harry Potter's life.
He realizes, that what he's looking for is just ahead. The voice has slowly grown louder until Harry can finally make out exactly what the woman seems to be pleading.
"Please... Help... Me... Help... Me... Pleeeeassseee..."
Harry's eyes are wide with fear and terror and every emotion that makes him want to crawl back into his cupboard under the stairs. He doesn't though; because his small frame freezes in unmitigated horror and absolute panic.
The first thing that Harry recognizes is the suit. Uncle Vernon had always judged people by their appearance and he had continuously said that a man could never go wrong with a suit. It was a simple cut in black with a white dress shirt beneath and a red tie tucked into a black vest that peeks out from the jacket.
The suit is the only thing that Harry's mind comprehends.
Because the man... Creature... Monster has arms that are too long to be human. His skin is the same white as paper, an unnatural white; and when the body turns in a full circle Harry realizes the most horrifying aspect of it all. There is no face. What should have been was instead merely a blob of white canvas with absolutely no features what so ever.
Harry isn't sure what takes him over the edge. Maybe it is the fact that as he stares, the faceless man's body seems to engorge and grow taller and slimmer and more menacing. Maybe it is the dark tendrils, the black tentacles that seem to grow, ever multiplying, from the faceless man's back and come creeping, ever closer to where he has fallen onto his bottom, trembling hands shaking as they lay useless in the pile of leaves beside him. Maybe it is the keening woman behind the faceless man, strung up in the tree's like a doll, her entrails and organs leaking through sheets of white that peek out through the gaping whole in her torso. Or maybe it is the slimy tendril of evil that strokes through Harry's matted hair and lingers over the lightning bolt scar over his forehead; the body of the thing bending and stretching until its head was just millimetres away from Harry's nose.
Harry can't remember exactly what it was that sends him flying over the edge of reason, all he can remember is the last moment before sweet oblivion takes him.
He recalls breathing so harshly his breaths come out in ragged pockets of air. He remembers the white head tilting closer towards his own. He remembers a voice, different from the pleading woman from before, whispering into his ear and he remembers the white head splitting open in a gnashing of darkness and tentacles and sharpness. All the while Harry's eyes flicker shut as the tentacles hovering over his head presses down with more strength and the last thing he hears is a voice that could have only been born from the deepest pits of Hell.
ARE YOU LOSSSSSST, LITTLE ONE?