"I killed my son."

Professor Dumbledore greeted this terrible revelation with a decided lack of the horror it deserved, in James' opinion.  "What makes you say that?"

"I killed my son," he repeated blankly, ignoring the Headmaster's question.

"James!  What the hell are you talking about?!" Lily grabbed him by the shoulders, forcing him to stop his pacing and look her in the eye.   He shut his eyes to block out the sight of hers.  They were too much like Harry's for him to bear.

"The curse scar," he managed to wrench out the words.  "I thought I recognised it.  Then I remembered.  Our Harry had it too."

"No he didn't."  Lily was frowning at him.  He could sense it without seeing.  "Not before..."

"I fixed the cut afterwards.  I didn't think you'd want to see the mark of the curse that killed him.  But it didn't.  I did."

"James," she shook his shoulders sharply.

He broke away from her grasp and collapsed in an armchair, burying his face in his hands.  Lily tore them away and slapped his cheeks briskly as she kneeled beside his legs.  He blinked at her, tears slipping past their bounds and sliding down to cool the stinging flesh.  She brushed them away with gentle fingers, her other hand trapping his own against his thigh.

"Drink, James," Albus said, pressing a cup to his lips.  He acquiesced, grimacing at the familiar taste; then they waited a few minutes in silence while the potion took effect, relaxing James in both body and mind.

"Sorry," he muttered at last, a faint blush on his cheeks even as Albus waved his apology away, and Lily shook her head in negation.  No matter how often his visions left him an emotional wreck, it was still highly embarrassing to recall after he regained control of himself.

"A little more coherently this time?" Lily prompted him with a tight smile.  He winced, but drew breath to comply.

"I remembered - the night our Harry died."  He paused briefly glancing swiftly between his wife and the Headmaster.  Lily's jaw clenched visibly; Albus remained impassive.  "He had that cut on his forehead when he died.  That same cut. On his forehead."  He breathed deeply before continuing.  "The way I held him - it had to be Voldemort's curse that hit him.  There's no way that curse could have missed us both completely; but it didn't touch me."

"No one survives the killing curse," Lily began, pale-faced. "Anything could have caused that cut - "

"No," James denied emphatically.  "Not anything.  It's a curse scar, and you know it."

"On this Harry, yes; but you didn't exactly give me a chance to see our Harry, did you?" Lily shot back at him, her voice unusually high pitched and strained.

"Children," the Headmaster rested one hand on each of their shoulders.  "We cannot change the past."

"No, we can't," James agreed bitterly.  Lily's eyes flashed at him, and he wished whole-heartedly that the armchair would swallow him up, but there was no hiding from the truth.  "I killed our son," he repeated, this time his tone as full of self-loathing as anguish.  "He survived the killing curse somehow.  I know he did.  This Harry is proof of that.  He died because I dropped him down the stairs."

They were silent for a few heartbeats; then Lily pushed herself up from her knees and over to the side table where Albus kept a decanter of port handy.  It wasn't quite as effective at soothing nerves as the potion Albus had given James earlier, but it tasted better in James' opinion.  It was unfortunate for him that liquor of any kind had precisely the wrong kind of effect on him.  Lily helped herself to a generous glassful, swallowing half before even attempting to speak.

"You can't know that, James," she uttered shakily, and tossed back the rest of her drink.  "It's not - not - " she broke off, shaking her head.  "I didn't need to hear this!"  Slamming the glass down carelessly, she left the room, her robes whirling around her in her haste.  The glass rolled precariously on the circumference of its base before toppling onto its side, rocking gently.

James bowed his head.  Albus' grip on his shoulder tightened momentarily.

"We cannot know for certain just what happened to Harry that night," Albus spoke sadly, but firmly.  "It is highly unlikely that he survived the killing curse; the taint of dark magic had almost completely enveloped him, as I recall.  However, there is nothing more we can do for that particular Harry."

James nodded slowly, raising his eyes to meet the Headmaster's, indicating his reluctant acceptance of this fact - as well as the responsibility that came with this new Harry into his life.  He would not let his son down a second time.

"If this Harry did manage to survive the killing curse at some point in his life, or, as is more likely, a similarly dangerous attack," Albus continued, "I have to wonder what the circumstances might have been."

James recognised the indirect encouragement to pry into his son's life with no small amount of trepidation.  He had a bad feeling that this Harry had inherited his own notions of privacy and personal space.  It was bound to drive Lily up the wall.

"As it is, I would recommend he be placed under similar protections as before, with due consideration for his increased age.  Once word spreads of his identity, I'm afraid he will become a priority target."

A target.

James stared at Lily's glass, now resting on its side on the table, a few drops of liquid spilling over its rim.  Even if it hadn't been the killing curse that had left this Harry with that scar, it must by necessity have been a very serious attack.

That scar...

"Is there anything else, James?" the Headmaster asked, his blue eyes particularly intent as he observed James.

"I have to check on something." James answered, already out of the chair and halfway to the door.  "We'll get back to you about the protections."

He'd seen that scar another time, he was sure of it.  He only had to work out when.
 

*** *** ***
 

Slamming the door shut behind him, Harry half-collapsed against the posts of the closest bed, clutching desperately at the wood to ground him in this reality.  Images of dust and blood clouded his vision, while screams and shouts echoed through his skull, as horrifyingly vibrant as the day he first heard them.  He wanted to cover his ears with his hands, even though he knew it wouldn't block out the sounds of the wounded and dying; yet if he let go, he could lose himself within the nightmare of his memories...

Perhaps that wasn't such a bad thing.  It was, after all, no more than he deserved.

His throat clenched, his breathing becoming harsh and shallow as he pushed back doggedly at the demons of memory threatening to consume him.  It would do no good to let them have their way; in fact it could do much harm.  He struggled against them, wrestling them out of his conscious mind and back to the shadowy depths of his mind.

Don't think.  Don't feel.  Don't remember.

 With great determination he focussed on regulating his breathing, gradually bringing it back to a semblance of normality, all the while forcing his facial muscles to relax into the blank mask he had become all too familiar with.

A snick behind him indicated the opening of the door.  His eyes flew open, and he whirled to face the doorway with one hand half raised to fight, to defend -

"Er - " said Neville, frozen with his hand on the doorknob.  "I just wanted to... point out your bed?"

Harry lowered his arm, fighting to keep it steady under Neville's alarmed gaze.  He blinked repeatedly against the sudden excess of moisture in his eyes, and turned away before it became obvious to the other boy.

Neville moved into the room, skirting around him at what he must have considered a cautious distance.  It was all Harry could do to keep still and not scream, not lash out, not run away...

"This is it," Neville declared, with a somewhat forced smile.  Harry stared numbly at the position of his new bed.  It was where Ron's had been in his own world.  "There's a chest for your stuff, too - but I guess you didn't really get a chance to bring anything with you, did you?  Well, I'm sure your parents will fix you up with clothes and anything else you need soon enough."  Neville's eyes trailed over Harry's dusty old robe.  Harry brushed at it self-consciously, recalling the look in his mother's eyes when she took in his appearance.  The bandages on his hands noticeably darkened.

"Um, I think I've got an old robe you can borrow for now, if you want to clean up a bit..."  Neville started digging through his own trunk without waiting for an answer.  Harry didn't think he would have been able to voice one in any case.  "Here you go," the taller boy proffered the wad of cloth to Harry.  "It might be a little big on you, but it'll do for now."  Harry accepted the robe wordlessly, staring at its black folds and silently willing Neville to leave.

"Do you... do you have any questions?"

Harry jerked his head in an approximate gesture of denial.  While he did have questions, he considered them very much lower in priority to restoring his self-control.  Neville's continuing presence was not helping with that at all.

"Well, if you do, feel free to ask."  Neville beat a hasty retreat, with more than one curious backwards glance.  Harry exhaled forcefully as soon as he left the room.

Not daring to look at 'his' bed again just yet, he headed off to the bathroom at a quick pace.  It was mercifully empty when he arrived.  He grabbed a spare towel from the linen cupboard before claiming the farthest shower stall.  After placing the towel and Neville's robe where the spray wouldn't soak them, he swiftly unwrapped his hands.  Beneath the bandages his skin was smooth and almost unmarked.  Only the faintest lines remained where the mirror had sliced open his flesh.  He was grateful for that; he'd collected enough scars in his lifetime already, in his opinion.  However, the majority of them weren't readily seen.

It was the most visible of his physical scars that currently bothered him the most.  Tentatively, he ran his index finger along the jagged scar tissue, repressing the urge to shudder at the sensation, the tactile equivalent of scraping fingernails down a blackboard.  The blemish crawled beneath his touch, and he lowered his hand.

Stripping off his clothes quickly, he stepped into the shower, revelling in the warm pressure of the water against his skin.  He raised his head to let the spray pound lightly against his face, letting the water wash away a modicum of his physical aches as well as the dirt he'd accumulated in the seeming eternity since his last proper shower.  Regretfully, not all the stains that marked him would be so easily dissipated.

He kept his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him while he laved his body with a liberal amount of soap.  The monotony of the task soothed his nerves marginally, enough so that he no longer felt as though his body was being drawn out on a rack.

His mind was another matter entirely.

He hadn't known how to react when he'd passed through the mirror into this strange yet familiar world.  Seeing the classroom in use had been like looking at a photograph - until the brown-eyed, red-headed boy had started to call him Dad.

Harry had amassed an unusual level of experience with out of the ordinary circumstances, and as the scenario hadn't seemed life-threatening in any way, he'd played the waiting game to see what would happen.  It was a dream come true when his father walked through the doorway.  Of course, reality had hit only minutes later when his 'father' had informed him that he wasn't going to think of Harry as a replacement son.  The words had hurt not so much for his father's caution, but because of their verity.

He was not their Harry.  He could never be their Harry.  Their Harry had been an innocent baby, while he was...

He wasn't anything they should want as a member of their family.

He let his head rest for moment against the tiles on the wall, then reluctantly turned the water off.  It couldn't wash away his past.  Drying himself with the towel, he began to plan.  He couldn't stay, there was no doubt in his mind of that.  He was a danger to them all.

With the towel wrapped around his waist, he put his glasses on and rustled through his robes, pulling two wands out from its pockets.  Holding the longer of the pair in front of him, he caught sight of himself in the bathroom mirror and grimaced.  Reminding himself that this mirror was no more than it seemed, he stared into his reflected eyes.

Eyes were supposed to be the windows of the soul, if you believed the poets.  If that was true, then he was already dead.  He almost laughed at the thought.

Focussing one more on the willow wand in his hand, he tilted his head, considering the matter.  He could obliviate himself.  Forget everything that had happened.

No.  He shook his head in bitter denial.  It was tempting, but memory charms could be overcome - and they would not change what he was.  It might just place everyone in more danger than they were already, and that was completely unacceptable.

He had to leave.  It was the only solution - yet he had nowhere to go.

Sinking to his knees, he stared blindly at the two wands in his hands as tears clouded his vision.  He brushed them roughly away from beneath his glasses.

Don't think.  Don't feel.  Don't remember.

He couldn't help but remember.  Downstairs in the common room they were alive and well, but they weren't the same.  They weren't his best friends.  They never would be.  His best friends were dead, and it was all his -

"Oi!  Harry!"

One wand was aimed at the intruder before he realised they'd called his name - only to be lost amidst the flying flotilla of laundry that landed on him.  Mercifully clean, he noted, even as he struggled to breathe evenly.

Simon smirked at him from halfway across the room, while Harry fought to keep his face expressionless - and to suppress the urge to strangle the red-head.  His 'little brother' had absolutely no idea of how close he'd come to - at best - spending a few days under Madam Pomfrey's tender care.

"Time to prove you're a Potter," Simon declared, and departed as swiftly as he'd appeared.

Harry looked blankly down at the clothes draped haphazardly over him.  Quidditch robes.  Right.

"And hurry up about it!" Simon's voice came echoing back through the doorway.  "We're all waiting!"

He stared at the robes in his hands.  He would almost rather have faced a hundred Dementors than the strangers downstairs who wore his friends' faces.

Almost.

Being near them was such bittersweet agony.

Don't think.  Don't feel.  Don't remember.
 
 

Simon's robes fitted better than Neville's.
 

*** *** ***

Next Chapter: Quidditch and questions
 

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