Beautiful Insanity

Chapter 2

Shattered Glass

- - - - -

Harry blinked and opened his eyes. He was still lying where he had fallen and there was no sign of the two Death Eaters who had attacked them all so viciously.

"Harry!" Hermione called from what seemed like a long way off.

Harry shook his head and sat up. It had felt so real …

"Are you alright?" Ron asked anxiously as he and Hermione scurried over.

"Yeah … I think so," he replied, rubbing his neck unconsciously. "What happened?"

"Well those two guys –"

"– they were Death Eaters," Harry submitted, getting slowly to his feet. "I saw the mark on that man's arm."

Hermione's face was white. "Death Eaters, here?"

"Yeah, they just went for you, mate, and held me and Hermione back. I dunno why … but they just did. Did they do anything?"

"No … I mean, I don't think so." His neck tingled, but when he removed his hand from it there was no blood, no mark, no nothing.

"Harry … we need to get out of here, now," Hermione conceded fearfully. "I'm serious … Voldemort could come along at any moment … I knew you shouldn't have come!"

"It's not Harry's fault, Hermione," Ron said, defending Harry. "He couldn't have guessed that You Know Who would choose today of all days …"

"That's what worries me," Hermione muttered distractedly. "Come on, put that cloak back on."

Harry nodded and threw the Invisibility Cloak back around his shoulders, his whole body aching from its latest contact with the frozen ground.

- - - - -

In a dark room sparingly furnished, the two Death Eaters that had made their way stealthily to Hogsmead that afternoon were to be found waiting with baited breath at the door of Lord Voldemort.

"Enter," came a high, cold voice from within. The nearest man, whose name was Cartwright, pushed the door with a shaking hand and went in, the other not far behind.

"Ah, Webb, Cartwright. I am glad to see you are both unscathed?"

"Yes, my Lord," said Cartwright, bowing as low as his bad back would permit him to. "Thank you for your concern."

Voldemort said nothing but examined his long thin fingers in the pale light from the cracks in the boarded window. When neither Death Eater offered any other words, Voldemort spoke, a slight irritation in his tone.

"I take it you were successful?"

"Oh, yes, my Lord," said Webb quickly. "We had little trouble in restraining the other two … and Cartwright here –"

"Yes, I did not doubt that you would be able to overcome those two whelps. It was Potter that I –"

"The boy put up little fight, sir," Cartwright said, cutting Voldemort off, and then looking rather sheepish. When Voldemort did not explode with anger however, he carried on. "You were very right to strike at this time, his defences were very low … it was not hard to –"

"– Well, your muscle had to be of some use, I suppose, as your brains count for little else. Very well, you have both been of good service."

The two Death Eaters glanced at each other with obvious pride and then tried to not look too pleased with themselves.

"I want bodies on watch. I want you to report back to me with anything unusual that you see. Hard though it may be to get to Potter directly, this may well tip the balance."

Voldemort traced his mouth with the tip of a long finger.

"Station Malfoy on it, too. I do not want any mistakes."

The possibility of Voldemort's wrath if they failed was enough to drive away the initial pride in their excursion.

"As you wish, my Lord," Webb said, still bowing.

"You may go."

And both Death Eaters left Voldemort sitting alone in his high backed chair, the thin slivers of light illuminating the smile that was slowly creasing his gaunt, twisted face.

- - - - -

The next day, Harry was sitting in a dreary stupor in Snape's classroom. Midday on a Monday morning; their worst day with double Potions followed by double Transfiguration. On their first day back, Harry and Ron had simultaneously glanced at their timetables and groaned. The fumes from the numerous cauldrons around him did nothing to lift his lethargy and only added to this strange fatigue.

Harry could not help dwelling on what had happened the day before. What on earth had occurred when he had been hit with whatever spell those Death Eaters fired on him? Perhaps it had been his own brain, overworked with everything that had happened recently. Either way, telling a teacher would have gotten him into serious trouble. Then again, ought Dumbledore to know that they had gotten into Hogsmead unnoticed … Yes, was the obvious answer plaguing his conscience.

"After the mandarin roots have been correctly shredded, you must add a single drop of Monksgane Juice, and I mean a single drop for all of you with limited listening powers, because any more will render the potion useless. Understand?"

There was a general murmur of assent, but Harry was far from comprehending what Snape was going on about.

"Now, I want you all to listen carefully to what I am about to tell you about the properties of Monksgane Juice, because your assignment will be directly on this. Any of you who do not hand it in on the correct date will face detention."

Harry rubbed his eyes with his hands ... why was he so tired? The fumes were overpowering; the Monksgane Juice smelled like rotting eggs and caught in the back of his throat. Snape's voice was droning on and on in the same monotonous tone … yet Harry was conveniently right at the back of the classroom. If he could just close his eyes for a few moments, Snape would not see him … it would be so nice to just rest for a few moments …

There was a flash of light, and Harry jerked suddenly and violently upwards, thinking he had knocked over his own cauldron with his elbow, but then he realised with a sickening jolt that he was no longer in the dungeon with Snape and the rest of the class.

Instead, he was sitting on a cold, metallic chair with his legs crossed underneath him, bent over double, as though he did not want to look up. As he raised his head slowly and fearfully, he smelled that horrible sterile smell again, reminding him of old and sickly people. The room he was in was not dark and stone walled and cold, as the Potions dungeon was, but bright and harshly lit with an odd and inescapable humidity. The walls were padded … and Harry realised in the back of his mind that he had been here before.

"Harry …"

Harry whipped his head around, his heart hammering. There, directly in front of him as though she had been all along, stood a plump nurse in a white uniform; white like the walls, and she was holding a small tin container. Her expression was kindly, but there was something else in it too, like pity.

"Come on, Harry …"

Harry stood up abruptly, pushing the chair back against the wall with a loud clang and moving as far into the corner as he could, away from her.

"What …?" he muttered, completely confused and terrified.

The woman again moved in front of him. "It's time for your drugs now, Harry … come on, you have to take them …"

"No, I don't –"

There was another flash; he blinked, and Snape was standing directly in front of him. The white, hospitalised room had vanished along with that awful smell and he was back again in the dungeon room with a number of classmates peering at him strangely. What was more, Snape was glaring at him with an expression that was less than pleased.

"What?" Harry ventured, wiping his brow and looking back at Snape confusedly.

"I said, Potter, that if I didn't know better that you were already a dunce with serious concentration issues I would think that you were on some sort of Muggle drugs."

Draco Malfoy guffawed stupidly from behind Harry. Harry turned his head and his eyes found Hermione, who was watching him with an anxious expression, her face a mask of worry.

"I'm … I'm sorry," Harry said detachedly, his mind still all over the place and he felt faintly sick. "I just … I don't know."

"I know you don't, Potter, which is why it will not be a surprise to anyone in this room that you have just earned yourself a detention, Thursday evening, 6 pm. And if I catch you snoozing in my lesson again, you will be very sorry indeed. Do I make myself plain?"

"Yeah," Harry mumbled, rubbing his head.

"I beg your pardon?" Snape snapped, his tone dangerously low.

"Yes, sir," Harry altered.

Snape stared at Harry for a few seconds, his expression still angry but there was something curious about his gaze. Harry looked away, his brain still buzzing and his stomach lurching.

- - - - -

"What was all that about, in Snape's lesson?" Hermione asked Harry later that day as they sat in the great hall eating their dinner.

"Oh, it was nothing. I just didn't … sleep very well last night," he said, half-truthfully.

Hermione continued to watch him, unconvinced. Harry was not about to tell her and a hall full of eagerly listening students that his mind kept dragging him back to somewhere that seemed horribly like a mental asylum. That was just what they would want to hear; that the boy who they all now believed really was a nutcase.

It's just lack of sleep, and an overactive brain, Harry told himself firmly, shovelling hot mashed potato into his mouth. People have been saying you're mad for ages … it's no wonder your mind's making things up … The more he said this to himself over and over the more plausible an explanation it became.

"Don't look at me like that, Hermione, I'm fine," Harry snapped at her, as she was still watching him.

"I know," Hermione said hurriedly. "I was just thinking that maybe … maybe we should tell the teachers or Dumbledore about what happened yesterday."

"Are you mad?" Ron said through his roast beef. "Harry would never be allowed to leave the castle again! Besides, he's alright isn't he?"

Hermione looked at Harry again, who avoided her gaze determinedly.

"I suppose," Hermione said slowly, her fork still hanging in mid-air. "It's just … I think the Order should know if Death Eaters are attacking Harry, it could be important."

"Death Eaters have been attacking me for most of my life, Hermione," Harry replied. "Look, if we see anything unusual again, we'll all go straight to Dumbledore. How's that?"

Hermione chewed her lip and then looked away. "OK, then."

Ron at least appeared satisfied, as he was stuffing his face heartily with helpings of dessert. Harry looked unappetisingly at the rhubarb crumble in front of him, but he didn't feel hungry. All he felt was an enormous sense of unease settling in his chest.

- - - - -

"Mr Weasley, that is the most pathetic attempt I have ever seen at a Locomotion Spell. You will practice tonight and tomorrow before our next lesson on Friday, do I make myself plain?"

"Yes, Professor," Ron said dully, his wand falling limply to his side. Harry had been fairly successful in the charm and had managed to levitate his paper weight around the room for a good minute before it smashed. Hermione of course had been quickest in mastering the charm and had progressed to heavier objects, receiving no homework.

The uneasy sick feeling that Harry had experienced with such force the day before had lessened slightly. He had slept better that night, and had had no bizarre visions or nightmarish flashes of anything except Snape's detention the following day.

"Can't believe we've only been back one week and you've already got a detention with Snape," Ron said to Harry as they walked back from Transfiguration that day.

"Yeah, well," Harry answered distractedly as they passed Professor Flitwick trying to open a door from behind an enormous stack of papers that were dwarfing him.

"Can't wait to try out for Quidditch this year," Ron went on as he opened the door for Flitwick to a squeaky "thank you!"

"Yeah, you'd be really good," Harry said. Truth be told, he hadn't really given Quidditch a second thought since he had been back; or indeed since the last term. It seemed like it belonged to a former life where he laughed and enjoyed being the best at something. Nowadays, other things seemed so much more important. Like whether or not I'll live or die, he thought negatively.

Harry's negative mood persisted right through to the next day and he was to be found walking dispiritedly down the steps to Snape's dungeon the following evening for his detention. He had not had any dinner; for some reason it felt as though there were snakes inside his stomach.

As he went to knock on the thick, oaken door, Harry paused to remember why it was that he had earned himself this detention. Thankfully, he had since had nothing to resemble a flash or a nightmare, but he still found himself oddly sleepy and lethargic and he was more than certain that this detention would leave him feeling rested and ready for the next day.

"Come in," Snape said from within. Harry pushed the door.

Snape's office was no different from the year before when Harry had been in it. He could see the store cupboard at the back that he had once been accused of robbing (not without reason) and grotesque objects still swirled in their liquids in glass jars upon the shelves next to Snape's desk.

"Do you know why you are here, Potter?" Snape said pointedly.

"Yes," Harry replied stiffly.

"Remind me why you are here, Potter."

Harry could tell that Snape was going to enjoy this; he had not been able to torment and insult him for the entire summer and now there was no one else to hear what the Potions master said.

"Because I wasn't concentrating," Harry muttered, glaring at a dead eel above Snape's head.

"Correct. Fittingly enough, I have a job for you that requires a great deal of concentration. That is, if you do not wish to burn your hands."

Harry looked back at Snape apprehensively with raised eyebrows. Snape's eyes were glittering.

"We recently received an order of Hydrochloric Acid from Pettifer Potions. Unfortunately they are in the wrong jars. Fortunately, I have the correct jars that they need to be in. There are six hundred jars, Potter."

Harry could not mask the exasperation in his face or his sigh as Snape motioned with his hand towards the cupboard and the jars lined up neatly upon the table in front of it.

"I suggest you make a start if you do not wish to be here all night."

With a thought of Hermione's scandalised expression if she knew what Snape was making him do, Harry threw his bag down hard and walked towards the store cupboard.

"I hope that this will teach you that concentration is paramount in my lessons, Potter. And if you stop concentrating … well, it shall simply serve as a reminder."

It was indeed tedious work, not helped by the fact that the jars were so full to the brim that one slip meant the liquid slid down the side and burned Harry's hand. He did not let any cry of pain escape his lips, however, despite one time when his entire thumb had been deluged in the liquid. He would not give Snape the satisfaction.

Before long, his neck began to ache from its prolonged downward angle. The scratching of Snape's quill became like Chinese water torture for Harry as he poured and poured the clear liquid into the right containers. Once or twice, he caught himself wondering whether or not Snape had made the entire thing up and that the jars were in fact correct in the first place, and that this was just an excuse to make Harry as uncomfortable as possible.

Evil man, Harry thought savagely. He longed to lie down and to stretch all his muscles out; it felt as though he had been here for at least four hours. Perhaps Snape had bewitched the clocks to make the time go even slower … Harry would not have put it past him.

As he sat there, Harry's attention drifted to Voldemort and the Death Eaters. Why had they been there in Hogsmead, and what were they doing? Probably trying to kill me, Harry thought. Wouldn't be the first time. He had never wanted more than in that particular moment for it all to be over, one way or another. He knew that this would shock Ron and Hermione, and so he never mentioned it to them, but all the same, dead or alive, it would be over …

"Ouch!" Harry hissed.

Having lost himself in his thoughts, his whole hand had slipped and the jar had smashed on the table. He could feel the acid burning though his robes and settling painfully into his skin.

"Potter!" Snape bellowed, throwing down his quill. "Clearly your concentration needs another few hours work! You will stay here until they are all done!"

Harry stared at Snape with incredulity. "Are you serious?"

Snape's eyes flashed dangerously. "Do not speak to me like that, Potter. I am perfectly serious. You will remain here until they are all done. Even when your limbs depend on it you cannot concentrate for any length of time!"

"I've been here doing this for four hours!" Harry shot back, his temper rising as the pain in his hands increased.

"You will do as you are told!" Snape spat, matching his volume. "Perhaps you believe, as your arrogant waste of a father did, that the rules do not apply to you? Well you shall be sorely disappointed because –"

"– he was not a waste," Harry said quietly, his voice shaking with anger. "Don't you talk about him like that."

Snape sneered cruelly. "And yet … you have even seen for your own eyes his cruelty in the Pensieve when you superciliously invaded my thoughts! You do not have any right to defend a man whom you never knew, Potter, let alone build up fantasies of heroism and bravery ..."

Harry opened his mouth to shout back, knowing he was on very thin ice and not caring at all, but a sudden pain in his head lurched down into his stomach and he was forced to close his eyes for a moment. Snape was still pressing his advantage, apparently pleased that Harry had cracked.

"Now your father may have gotten away with rule breaking, but you …"

Harry sat down clumsily, having gotten to his feet when the jar smashed, and thought he was going to be sick. He put his head in his hands and doubled over, ignoring Snape.

"Get up! Do as you are told!"

But Harry could not. There was a flash of light and that horrible nausea coursing through his veins again.

"Potter?"

Harry shook his head, unable to speak for a moment. He wasn't even aware of the pain in his hands.

"Harry? Can you hear me?" It was a different voice.

Harry looked up. There it was – the place he thought was only in his overactive thoughts … but it was so real.

He was in a white room with that sterile smell again, pressed into the corner where two walls met with his knees drawn up into his chest. There was a bed in the centre of the room with wrist restraints hanging down by the sides … and right in front of him was a man, a man who he had never seen before. He looked like a doctor of some kind; the white coat hung around his shoulders and thin rimmed glasses were perched on the end of his nose. He was peering at Harry curiously, who returned his gaze in bewilderment.

"W – what is this?" Harry asked, breathing very quickly. He noticed that he wasn't even wearing school robes any more, but instead there was grey flannel clothing that hung limply off his skinny frame.

"Do you know where you are, Harry?" the doctor asked, his expression unchanged.

"Hogwarts …" Harry muttered, confused. His brain felt muddled and dysfunctional, but surely that was a question he could answer. He was in Hogwarts … he knew he was.

The doctor shook his head strongly and held tried to hold Harry's gaze.

"No, Harry, none of that is real. You're in a mental institution."

Harry stared at the doctor blankly and then looked at the pale floor, shaking his head, refusing to entertain this stupid nightmare …

"You've been here with us for just over five years now. Do you remember?"

"You're not real …" Harry whispered, still shaking his head. "I know where I am … I …"

"No, Harry. This is real … you've been here for five years. Do you remember?" the doctor repeated clearly.

Harry broke his gaze away from the floor and looked back at the doctor … except that it wasn't the doctor any more. It was Snape. And the dungeon had returned. Snape was staring at Harry with a very odd expression on his face.

"What the …" he muttered as Harry tried to take in his surroundings, swivelling his head. "Potter, what on earth is wrong?"

But as Harry's eyes returned to Snape, he wasn't Snape any more. The violent changes in scenery made Harry wretch and the man in front of him, who was now the doctor, reached out a hand towards him.

"It's OK, Harry … it's OK …"

Harry backed away as far as he could go, and reached the relative comfort of the cool, stone wall. He pressed his head into it for a few seconds, trying to get it to calm him, to jerk out of it …

"Look … look who's here, Harry!" the doctor said in a voice that one might have used with an overemotional child.

Harry slowly turned his head towards the doctor and the now open door, through which light was flooding in from outside.

There was a woman with red hair, standing framed in the doorway. Behind her was another person, a man with dark hair and glasses, his face filled with anguish.

"Harry?"

Harry stared in absolute shock, not believing it. It was impossible. He was dreaming.

"Welcome home, baby …" said the woman softly.

Harry felt tears prick his eyes.

"… mum?"

- - - - -