A/N - once again, the things that pop into my head when I should be working on my CEUs...
The theories about what caused the wave of disasters and unsolved crimes in late 1997 and early 1998 were nearly as numerous and varied as the incidents themselves.
Some said aliens from another world were to blame.
They weren't entirely wrong, because the people responsible for the trouble did not belong to this world.
Some said these events were foretold in the prophecies of Nostradamus, the Mayans, the Aztecs, the Phoenicians, or some other ancient group or philosopher JD had never heard of.
Some religious groups blamed the judgment of an angry deity. Some even went so far as to say that the biblical rapture had happened in the spring of 1998, and the poor souls left on earth were the sinners who didn't make the cut.
Some blamed sunspots, environmental pollution, ozone depletion, acid rain, altered tides, or shifts in the planet's tectonic plates for the natural disasters, and for affecting the brains of the supposed thousands of sudden criminals.
There was even a cult who claimed their snake god had risen from the grave and battled for control of the earth.
JD liked that theory. It was more spot on than most people realized.
They called him JD, short for John Doe Number 47. He had tried to tell them for the first several weeks that his name was Dudley Evans Dursley, but they didn't believe him.
Dudley Evans Dursley had died in a tragic house fire with his parents and orphaned cousin Harry in the spring of 1998. It had been started by the boys sneaking around smoking cigarettes late at night when the adults were in bed, according to the fire marshal.
The fact that JD had been suffering from second and third degree burns on his both legs and one arm when he was found had been ignored.
So when he was recovered enough to leave the hospital, they had brought him here, to the third floor of a tiny anonymous hospital in a town that was little more than a wide spot in the road.
There were others here like him.
Others who claimed that their "house fires," "accidents," "natural disasters," and other life changing events had been caused by creatures with powers mere mortals could not comprehend.
"Creatures" that looked like everyone else.
Sometimes JD wondered if that was what frightened the "normal" ones most of all.
JD had been at the hospital four months when she arrived.
He knew right away that she was one of Them, but she wasn't one of the evil ones.
There was something about her that JD couldn't identify, but something that reminded him of Harry.
She had long, curly blonde hair, and a sweet round face. She also had angry red scars on her neck as if something had tried to literally rip her head off.
He heard two of the orderlies whispering, of how she had been treated for months at the finest hospitals, but nothing they tried would minimize her scars. The doctors weren't even sure what caused her scars. The girl said a werewolf had attacked her.
Everyone knew there were no such thing as werewolves.
Just like they knew there were no such things as wizards.
"What is your name, dear?" the old lady who supervised Group Recovery asked her.
"Lavender" she answered.
"No, dear. Lavender is the color you have on. What is your name?" the old woman spoke with long suffering patience.
"Mara." the girl finally answered.
"Mara. 'Call me Mara, for I am bitter.'" Elijah quoted.
No one knew his real name. He called himself Elijah and quoted scriptures all the time.
Especially the ones about demons and powers and principalities and dominions of the air.
"Yes, I am." she said, almost to herself.
It was the only thing she said in group that day.
It was the only thing she said for a long time.
The staff gave her a wide berth, and following by example, the other patients did the same.
He heard more whispers about her. Of how she had been at Bethlem Royal Hospital, the finest mental institution in the country, for many months.
Of how there had been strange goings on while she was there, and the staff had become frightened of her.
JD just watched.
She had been there almost a month when the first strange thing happened.
Mara was in the common room, looking out the window at the rain. One of the staff walked over to tell her it was time for group. He gently laid his hand on Mara's right shoulder.
She started, and a heartbeat later, the orderly hit the wall on the other side of the room.
He swore she never touched him.
The next day he saw her in the common room during free time.
"I know what you are." he whispered.
She looked at him as if they had been playing a game, and she had tired of it.
"What am I?" she asked.
"You're one of them. You're one of the Magical Ones." he answered.
"Get away from me." she started to back away.
"No!" he held out his hand, but didn't touch her. "I won't tell. I kept my cousin's secret ever since he got his Hogwarts letter."
Her eyes widened. "Are you a squib?"
He frowned. "I don't know what that is. I just know that my cousin was magical and we weren't, my parents and I, I mean. He lived with us."
"He was muggleborn, then?" she asked, looking around. "Did they kill him?"
"I don't know what that means either." Dudley moved away from the group, toward a table and chairs away from where the others were huddled on the sofa watching an old movie. She followed him, sitting down. "His parents were magical. The Bad Ones killed them when he was a baby. So he lived with my family until he went away to school. Then some magical people came and took us away, sent us to hiding protect us from The Bad Ones because a war was coming. But The Bad Ones found us anyway. They killed my parents and I was injured but got away. Everyone thinks Harry and I are dead too. No one believes me when I tell them who I am, and I have no idea what happened to Harry."
"Harry?" she asked, her eyes widening. "You cousin was Harry Potter?"
He nodded. "Did you know him?"
She smiled sadly. "He was one of my dearest friends."
JD's face fell. "They killed him, then?"
"No, no." her face lit up excitedly. "He won! He defeated The Bad Ones! It's over now."
"Harry's alive?" he smiled for the first time in what felt like years. "It's over? The Bad Ones are gone?"
"Yes!" she nodded emphatically. "He killed their leader. Most of them were killed in the final battle, and the ones who weren't were arrested and sent to the wizard prison."
His face fell again. "Then why doesn't anyone believe us?" he asked.
Her smile disappeared too. "Because the muggles - the non-magical people - are afraid of things they don't understand. They presume we must be mad."
"We're not mad, are we Lavender?" he squeezed her hand.
"No, we're not." she squeezed his back.
"Why are you here?" he asked. "I mean, in the non-magical world?"
"I was walking down the street in the muggle part of London. I saw someone who looked like one of The Bad Ones. It frightened me so much, I started shaking and screaming. The police took me to a hospital, because they thought I had been attacked. The more I tried to tell them what happened, the more they thought I was mad."
"Didn't your family ... " JD began.
She shook her head violently. "My parents were killed by The Bad Ones. But it's okay. I'm safe here. No one will hurt me. And my scars aren't a big deal here. "
"Let's get out of here." he suggested.
"Are you mad?" her eyes widened and her nostrils flared.
"I thought we just established that we weren't." he chuckled.
"There are terrible things outside the hospitals!" she cried, causing the orderly in charge of the room to look over sharply.
"You said yourself that the war is over, that The Bad Ones were defeated. What is there to be afraid of?" he frowned.
She hesitated. "People who don't understand." she finally answered.
"We have that here." he glanced over at the orderly, who was watching them like a hawk.
"Where would we go?" she wondered.
"To Harry, of course." he smiled.
"What do we have to gain by leaving?" she asked honestly.
"If we stay," he glanced over at the orderly again. "They're going to keep working on us until we believe them. That we are mad. That none it ever really happened. They even took our names away, Lavender. He paused, looking at her intently. "They will take the magic out of the world.
"Maybe the world is safer that way." she murmured.
"Maybe it is." he agreed. "But if the magic is gone, what's left?"
He stood and walked away, leaving her to think.
She didn't speak in group that afternoon.
Or at dinner. Or at all the rest of the day.
The next day at lunch, she sat beside him.
"So when do we leave?" she asked.