As far as family reunions went, this one was turning out to be nerve-wracking to the extreme.  If the situation hadn't been so serious, Theo would have been most amused by the way the two red-heads in his family fidgeted in a strange kind of dance, all the while seated on either side of the enigma that was Harry Potter.    His mother was wringing her hands absently, while her eyes drifted between all three of her sons; his brother was scuffing his feet against the floor, scowling at it and Harry in roughly equal proportions.  It was reminiscent of how they'd sat at Aunt Petunia's dinner table the one and only time Simon had been introduced to their mother's sister and her family - only then it had been himself in the middle, and the Dursleys who had been the victims of Simon's temper...

Harry seemed immune to their constant movements, sitting as motionless as a statue between them.  Only his eyes betrayed signs of life, widening slightly as they focused on their father.  Theo's brow furrowed fractionally as he traced Harry's line of sight.  Their father was staring sightlessly past the trio on the bed, an odd glaze that Theo had come to both recognise and fear over the years rendering them unfocused behind his glasses.

"Dad?" he murmured softy, touching his father's arm gently.  There was no response.  Theo glanced across to his mother, but Simon was the one who sprang up from the bed and shook his father lightly by the shoulders with his bandaged hands.

"Dad!" he called out, his tone nowhere near as worried as Theo's, but just as emphatic.  It took a second attempt before Simon finally gained a reaction.  All the while, Harry and their mother observed anxiously from the bed.

"What?" his father blinked dazedly, his eyes focussing once more on the here-and-now.

"You kinda spaced out there, Dad," Simon informed him matter-of-factly.

"Oh," his father replied abstractedly, directing a half-hearted smile at his youngest son.  "I was just - remembering..."  He trailed off, eyes drifting towards his eldest born like a lodestone to iron.  His gaze remained fixed on Harry for several long moments, while his face became increasingly drawn.  "I just - "  He shook his head once, as though denying some unwanted thought, then dashed out of the Hospital Wing, one hand pressed against his forehead.

"James!"  Theo and his brothers watched silently as his mother hurried after his father, pausing only briefly to say, "Get Harry settled in at the Tower.  We'll see you at dinner."

Theo could only hope that they would indeed see their father at dinner.  From what he had discerned, his father's visions rarely left him in the mood for eating anything.

"Come on," he called to his brothers as he led the way, automatically assuming authority of his siblings in the absence of their parents.

"This is all your fault," Simon griped at Harry as they started to follow him.  Harry's silence seemed startlingly vocal in response.

"Shut up, Simon," Theo chastised him, darting a quick glance towards both of his brothers and swiftly deciding that he did not like the expression on Harry's face.

"But it is!"

"You don't know that."

"You don't either!"

Theo rolled his eyes and bit his tongue against further exchanges.  Simon would always have the last word in an argument, no matter how pointless and childish it seemed.  While Theo was accustomed to Simon's careless manner of speaking, Harry was obviously not - and accusatory remarks were not going to settle him when he was already as tense as a harp string.  He dropped his pace a trifle, forcing himself into a position between his brothers in hopes of preventing any more fraternal attacks.

"Does he have visions in your world, too?" Theo ventured, weighing Harry's reactions against knowledge of his father's character.  Green eyes almost burned a hole through his head with the intensity of their gaze.  The younger boy found himself resisting the urge to flinch.

"No."  The tone was strangled and most definitely not happy.

"Well, he does," Theo stated, instilling a calm in his voice that belied the apprehension he felt both for his father's sake and Harry's.  Neither were currently behaving in anything like a reassuring fashion.

The remainder of the trek to Gryffindor Tower was passed in silence.  They arrived at the portrait of the Fat Lady only to find her somewhat distracted by an argument going on within the Common Room.  The muffled shouts that were unintelligibly audible through the closed entranceway gave Theo a moment's pause before he uttered the password - "Billywig Blues" - and ploughed his way in, Harry and Simon in tow.

" - and it doesn't matter what you think!"

"Oh, of course it doesn't!  It's not like I'm supposed to be your boyfriend, is it?!"

"You're not acting like any kind of friend at all!"

"Oh yes I am!"

"Shut it, both of you!"

A bushy-haired, brown-eyed girl spun to face the doorway with an annoyed glare that rapidly faded to embarrassment as she caught sight of the three brothers.  A solidly built young man rather obviously trying to restrain his temper looked over her shoulder, his cheeks still red with anger.

"Oh," the girl exclaimed, stepping hastily towards them - and away from her erstwhile verbal combatant.  "You must be Harry.  Professor McGonagall told us about the, er, accident."

"It was  an accident," Simon declared, glaring around the Common Room as though promising dire consequences to anyone who said otherwise.

"No one said it wasn't," Theo informed him dryly.

"Right," his red-headed brother muttered, and stormed up the staircase to the boy's dormitory.   A couple of the other fourth-years abandoned their activities to dart upstairs behind him.  Theo exhaled heavily, shaking his head slightly at his younger brother's mood, before turning to his older brother.  Harry's face was as blank as a whitewashed wall as he stared at the girl who'd spoken.

"This is Hermione Granger, the Head Girl," Theo introduced, and she offered her hand to Harry.  He made no move to take it, and she dropped her arm awkwardly after a few moments.  "Behind her is Neville Longbottom, the other seventh-year prefect.  On the couch are Seamus Finnigan and Lavender Brown; they're also in your year; so are Ron Weasley and Dean Thomas in the corner - "

"Shouldn't he know this already?" Neville interrupted the round of introductions, looking Harry over curiously.  "I mean, he was in our year and house in his own world, wasn't he?"

"Yes, Neville, but his world is different to ours," Hermione informed him in a lecturing tone of voice.  "Some of us might be in different houses - "

"Yeah, you never know," Seamus chimed in, "you might be in Slytherin there, Neville!"

Neville snorted.  "Yeah, sure, a Longbottom in Slytherin.  That's about as likely as Miss Granger here ever admitting she was wrong."  A few people snorted back laughter as the Head Girl fumed.

"Well, Harry?" Ron called out from across the room.  "Was she this much of a stuck-up know-it-all in your world?"

The boy in question didn't respond, his green eyes glazing over in a manner that was all too reminiscent of his father's eyes before he left the infirmary.  Theo automatically tried the same tactics that usually worked on his father - call his name, touch his arm -

The results were somewhat different, although ultimately also quite similar.

Harry's head whipped around as soon as Theo's fingers touched his sleeve, his eyes wide.  He gazed sightlessly at him for one brief moment - then practically bolted up the stairs to the dormitories.  Surprised stares followed his departure from the common room, with the murmur of gossiping voices rising hot on his heels.

"Er - I'll go and show him his bed and all, shall I?" Neville half-asked, half-stated.  No one answered, and he reluctantly took himself upstairs to discharge his self-appointed obligation.

"What's up with him?" was the question most frequently flung at Theo amidst an increasing barrage, to which he could only shrug or shake his head helplessly.

"Oh, hush up, all of you!"  Hermione told them all off in tones that would have done McGonagall proud.  "He's just been uprooted from the world he knows, doesn't even know if he'll ever make it back, and you go reminding him of that fact!"

"I only asked him a question!" Ron protested.

"Well, how would you feel in his position?"  The pretty much turned the point of discussion to how everyone else would cope with the situation, and to the possible differences between the worlds.

Theo sat on the edge of the group making appropriate noises when required, while the majority of his thoughts were upstairs with his brothers.  Simon was simply being his usual temperamental self, albeit with an unusual cause; but Harry's behaviour was worrying him.  Combined with the possibilities of their father's latest vision...  It took a rough punch to his shoulder from Colin to rouse him from his musings.

"What?" he demanded testily.

"He any good on a broom, you know?"  The conversation had inevitably stumbled over to Quidditch, it seemed.

Theo shrugged.  There was only one way to find out.

*** *** ***

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