Disclaimer: Same as before

Warnings: Ditto

He regretted opening his eyes instantly. Squeezing them tightly shut with a wince he groaned. Then, as his mind cleared, a preposterous thought entered his head. That head seemed like…light. But it couldn't be. There was no light in Azkaban. Then he noticed that he wasn't lying on stone but on a bed. And while it wasn't the softest he'd ever slept on, at that moment it felt like heaven.

The next thing to register was the steady beeping of a machine, then footsteps that were echoing down the hallway. But…Dementors didn't make noise when they walked. They didn't even have feet! He heard the door open and he tensed as someone walked towards him.

"Mr Potter! It's nice to finally see you awake. You looked a bit of a mess when you were brought in."

"Too…bright."

"Too…Oh, I'll just close the curtains."

Harry hesitantly opened his eyes again, and was relieved to find that, while it was still light, it no longer burnt his eyes. He tried to speak once more but all that came out was a hoarse croak. He strugglingly sat up and the lady put a glass to his lips. He drank as if water was a gift from the gods. It was so clear, so clean! He sighed in ecstasy when he was done and surveyed the room.

It was white, startlingly so, and full of beeping machines with wires that were connected to…him. There was a large window with curtains pulled across it and a random plant in the corner.

"Wh…where am I?" He asked, voice still weak.

The brown haired woman smiled, as she looked at a clipboard. "You're at the Royal Albert hospital in London Harry. You were brought here by a member of the public a week ago. He found you lying in the street."

"London? A week? I…I don't…"

"You were in such a terrible state we weren't sure you were going to make it, and- oh, I've forgotten to introduce myself haven't I! I'm nurse Reynolds but you can call me Holly. We'll be keeping you in for at least a week for observation. Do you have any relatives you'd like us to call? Friends perhaps?" The nurse was annoyingly cheery, a large smile permanently fixed on her face, and made Harry wonder what was so great about being around complaining sick people all day. He didn't ask.

"Ummm…No. No one." Nurse Reynolds' face fell, something which gave Harry a strange sense of satisfaction.

"Well I-" Beep. Beep. Beep. The Nurse looked at the pager clipped to her waistline.

"Exscuse me Harry, it seems I'm needed elsewhere."

Harry almost sighed in relief as he watched her leave and decided to take advantage of what was normally a momentary lucidity. He waited for a few minutes to see if she would come back, then pulled the wires out of his body and climbed out of bed, wincing slightly. He frowned at the white hospital gown he was wearing but, seeing no clothes in the room, resigned himself to wearing it a little while longer. He opened the door quietly and looked down the corridor, checking that it was empty, then left the room.

With every step he expected the white walls to shimmer and dissolve, to twist and bleed into the dank, dark cell that had become his cell. With every second of silence he waited to here the tortured, broken screams, the begging, the pleading, the endless, never changing existence in Azkaban. He felt a slight dissension within himself as brothers sanity and insanity argued over who would rule his mind. For the first time in years sanity won, and insanity crawled whimpering and snarling into the deepest, darkest recesses of his mind, waiting for the glass walls of Harry's wind to crack and shatter.

It was as Harry was walking down the corridor, looking into the various patients rooms, that he saw the answer to his problem. He waited till he saw someone that looked roughly his size and stole gently into their room. The boy lying in the hospital bed looked pale and sickly, his bones far too prominent to be natural, a skeleton with paper thin skin stretched far too tight. He was almost as thin as Harry.

Harry opened the cupboard, wincing at the loud creak, and rummaged through the clothes. T shirts posed no problem, and he found a plain black t-shirt that was only a little large on him. Trousers however, were a nightmare. He tried on jeans, corduroys and trousers that he didn't think were even meant to fit. None of them were Harry's size. Eventually, all that was left was a pair of leather trousers. Considering Harry wanted to be inconspicuous they weren't the best choice, but they were the only ones that didn't fall down when Harry walked, probably because they were skin tight.

He found a pair of scruffy black trainers and, after putting them on, made his way over to the window. Throwing a quick apology over his shoulder to the boy in the bed he opened the window and climbed down to the ground, before taking off with a sprint. He didn't get very far. After five minutes of running his breath was ragged and his chest heaving. He leant against a wall, gasping for breath. Azkaban had not been good for his fitness levels.

He stumbled onwards, looking for anything he recognized. But the walls weren't bleeding and he couldn't hear screaming. And he wasn't enclosed, he could walk and walk and keep on walking. It was so unfamiliar to him that he almost wished he were back in his cell, back home where everything was the same and he always knew where he was, what he was doing. Harry had forgotten about the existence of change.

He staggered into the road and a car swerved around him beeping its horn angrily. Harry ignored it and carried on with no destination. It was only when he fell to his knees in front of a dilapidated building that he realised he was on once familiar ground. He pushed himself off of the ground and, after arranging his knotted, past shoulder length hair to cover his face, slipped into The Leaky Cauldron.

He kept to the shadows, blending in, which wasn't hard due to the dim lighting and smoky air. His mind processed snatches of conversation as he walked through.

"The ministry are sayin' 'e's dead. So is Dumbledore It 'as been 'alf a year."

"The other four Lords are obviously happy. All of them have one less rival."

"Have you seen the price of Newts tails? It's robbery!"

"Grindewalds still the biggest danger. He's mad. Insanity is dangerous"

"Ring a ring o' roses, a pocket full o' posies…"

"Voldemort hasn't caused much trouble lately."

"Probably planning something. They're always planning something."

"Damn!"

"D'you 'ear abou' ol' Mr Gry? Killed 'imslef 'e did."

"Two light Lords and two Dark Lords. I guess it's even again.l"

He learnt against the wall that served as the barrier between the magical and muggle worlds. None of what he had heared had made any sense. Four Lords, two Dark, two Light? There was only Vodemort and Dumbledore, and they were both dead, he had made sure of that. And Grindewald? He had been defeated 100 years ago, give or take a decade or two. Not even Harry's unstable mind would accept that three powerful wizards had come back from the dead. Not to mention an unnamed Light Lord and the rival that was presumed dead. It was like the entire world had changed since he'd been in Azkaban.

He racked his mind for the brick combination to enter Diagon Alley and came up blank. They had changed it during the war anyway so it wouldn't be the same. He swore under his breath, not wanting to be stuck in the muggle world, when a memory came to mind.

"Shit!" He didn't know the password. He didn't know the password and he had to get out. He had to. He searched the room frantically for another exit, but there was only this one, and it was passworded both ways. He slammed his fist against the door, then both his hands, screaming "Open!" He felt the ecstasy inducing rush of magic, felt it pool at his hands, then in spill out onto the door, weaving it's way into the woodwork and wards. Seconds later the door sprung open, and Harry ran from the Headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix.

He pressed his palms against the brick wall and concentrated, feeling the wards that were intertwined in the very making of the wall. Then, for the first time in goddess knows how long, he felt his own reserve of magic spring up at his command. He pushed it into the wall, fighting the wards. Every second sapped the energy from dwindling his magic supply. But finally he could feel the bricks moving under his fingers and he got his first view of Diagon Alley.

I looked like it had the first time he had seen it. All those years ago when he was young and so goddamn naïve. The shops were covered in bright advertisements, people sat outside cafes, basking in the sun, children laughed and ran through the street. It wasn't like the Diagon Alley he had seen in his mind in Azkaban.

He stood in the shadows as he watched the Death Eaters worked, casting curses.. Witches, wizards, adults, teenagers, children. They were all hit, all screamed, all died. Every sound was a dagger in his heart, every death a sharp twist of the handle. But this was his own choice, no one else's. He did this. He made to spin around as he felt arms wrap around his waste, but they were too tight. Then he heard the hiss of parsletounge and relaxed into the familiar embrace. "Can you taste their fear my snakelet? I can roll it on my tongue and savour ever little bit. Their screams are music to my ears, sweet harmonies." Harry shivered as the sweetly whispered words drifted through his mind. He felt Voldemorts lips on his neck and gasped as they bit down softly, the kissed. "You will learn to enjoy it my sweet, whether you want to or not."

He remembered the rubble that had filled the alley. The dead bodies that had littered the floor, repaving the old cobbled floor with blood and rotting corpses. There had been no one to clean up the alley. The Ministry had already been destroyed. The aurors were in chaos. The Order had better things to do.

It was strange to think that the Alley had gone back to normal. It seemed almost impossible to have managed it so quickly. And for people to be so relaxed there…It wasn't right. Something wasn't right.

He kept his head down as he stared at the too clean pavement slabs. He looked up every so often, and he saw people he had known. Old friends, old enemies. Death Eaters, Order members. He watched as the dead walked and talked and laughed. As people he had killed breathed and lived. He saw their deaths flashing through his mind. They were dead. He had seen them die.

He was so caught up in his thoughts that he didn't see the person running towards him until it was too late. They both fell to the floor, Harry at the bottom, and the man who fell on him gasped and scrambled up quickly. They stared at each other, frozen, then the other man spoke in a stangled, awe filed, whisper.

"My Lord…You're alive!