Ward Zero

Nothing seemed right. He kept running. Everything was upside down. As he traveled the hallways of Hogwarts, the walls fell around him. Lights were flashing but no screams could be heard. Only the sound of laughter accompanied the destruction of his solitude. His only remaining home, once a sanctuary was now a dead dream.

"I'm trying to protect you," he called out.

She wasn't laughing, yet she stood there invincible to the chaos that surrounded her.

"Everyone's gone aren't they?" Her face scrunched up. She cried but her tears turned to rain. Her hair turned to the heat.

Everything was melting.

"Don't you want the evil to be gone? Don't you want a normal life?" He couldn't run any further, out of breath and out of places to turn.

"You have to kill it then." Her face was calm. "But once you kill it, you kill apart of yourself. You've killed him before, and killed apart of me."

"What? I'm protecting you...I'm...I'm doing what's right. It will better with Voldemort dead." That was the way it should be, it doesn't make any sense otherwise.

She looked very sad indeed. "He's the sickness. You have the sickness; I have the sickness, that's why we're here. They want the sickness to go away. That's why we are in this room."

"Where? Hogwarts?" Harry pointed back to the burning rubble in a state of confusion. "It's gone, Voldemort blew it up."

"All this time you thought you were so brave saying his name when everyone else that is a part of your insanity couldn't. You were brave to think that you could get rid of the sickness. You are brave enough to hold back the sickness. But wake up Harry, we are never going to get better and you can never protect me from it. Protect me from yourself? It's not possible."

Everything was melting away. His life was melting away. He cried, but his tears did not turn into the rain. His hair did not turn into the heat.

"Ginny, Voldemort killed my parents, he killed Sirius, he killed Percy...he killed so many people."

"No Harry," She was looking at nothing now. "Your parents died in a car crash. Sirius was shot. Percy committed suicide. Don't you remember your life before? The awful people you were with?"

"Yes, but my life is in the magic world. I am a wizard. I belong here. My best friends are here. My new family...is here." He was pleading with his eyes, his voice. Why couldn't she understand him? He saved her life time after time.

"Harry, nothing is here. There is no such thing as magic...you made it all up. You have to wake up some day." It was cold now and Ginny shivered.

"How...what...why are you saying such lies...Ron and Hermione..."

"Ron and Hermione don't have to live here. They're normal. You have to come back to reality someday."

And somewhere in the mist of that conversation, he did.

And he was screaming.

Ginny didn't know why she had told him or even tried to make him see that the world he so elaborately created wasn't really there. Did she want him to get better or to get worse? He had formed such a world from every little detail of this one, the good and bad. That was his specialty; that was his sickness.

Rushed footsteps could be heard from the ward corridor. Ginny turned to face the wall in shame. She had just wanted him to get better. So she had told him the truth. When the door opened, dim light fluttered in from the corridor. The nurse dressed in white from head to toe came to sooth Harry's screaming.

"It's all right love, it's all right." The nurse turned and saw the evil girl facing the wall; a position she was often in when serving her punishment.

"What did you say to him you wicked girl?" The nurse hissed in a furious whisper, stepping towards her furiously.

Ginny said nothing and did not turn around.

The nurse grabbed her arm. "Tell me you witch."

Ginny looked over to Harry while the nurse whipped her around. He was in his glass state. He always did that when he visited his magic world in which Ginny had attempted to bring him out of. He would not forget what Ginny had told him. That was part of his specialty -sickness rather; he never could forget anything that anyone said.

His face was troubled, as it sometimes was when he had made the sickness an evil person he was fighting, but even then he was somewhat satisfied that he was fighting him. Harry was no longer in the room.

"Cat got your tongue? I'll take you to the ward administrator."

The ward administrator was the reason she was here, ironically. Though people said that it couldn't be true, that it was impossible. Ginny knew the truth, it was Lucius Malfoy who made her unable to speak to people. It was all his fault that she was here. Although everyone said this was just a complication of her sickness.

The nurse opened the door with out knocking, forcefully plopping Ginny's thin frame into a chair.

"More problems with this one, Miss Chang?" Lucius Malfoy questioned, putting down the bills and checks he was currently handling.

Ginny hated being brought to him. Their "problem solving" was long and torturous and always the same. He would talk. Nurse Chang or any other nurse that brought her would look peeved. Lucius would say that if she wouldn't talk to him she'd get her ward privileges taken away. As always, Ginny never made a sound.

His victorious smile was the last thing Ginny saw before she stopped hearing anything and could only see the world on mute. The door closed leaving her world. Reality.

This she harbored alone, yet shared with the world, all but Harry Potter of course. This was the way it had always been and always would be.

(0)

Harry had now awakened in his bed. It was dark in the small orange room. He could make out his best friend's, Ron's, snoring.

Harry was hungry and descended down the stairs into the Burrow kitchen. Harry opened up the cabinet which held a large container of ice cream. The cabinet must've had a freezing spell put on it. Taking a spoon from a drawer, Harry started to dig the spoon into the ice cream.

But it turned to rock as soon as his spoon touched it. Harry dropped the rock in surprise and let out a howl of pain. He was surprised that no one had heard him. He hopped to the table and put his throbbing foot on a stool. The foot ended up in Ginny's lap.

"How did you get here?"

"I heard you screaming and apparated down. I don't see why you screamed. The pain's not real. You made it up, just like you've been doing for seven years. Start thinking it's not real and then you'll stop feeling the pain."

Harry hopped up in anger. He was sick of her lies. If this wasn't real than how was he here in her family's home? How did she get down to the kitchen? She had said so herself, by magic. He didn't make her appear.

He ran out the back door into the night.

"Harry, it's dangerous in the dark isn't it?" came the call of the liar.

The trees burst in flames. It was no longer dark despite the moonless night. In the fire was a man, if you could even call him a man. It was Voldemort.

Perfect, Harry thought sarcastically. What can I do now?

Harry reached for his wand and rushed toward Voldemort in a fit of blinding rage. Harry found that he couldn't reach Voldemort, the further forward he ran, the further away his enemy seemed.

"It seems that your end is near Potter. Farewell." Voldemort pulled his wand slowly from out of his cloak and pointed it at Harry. "Avada Kedavra."

All Harry could see as he was hit was the back of his eyelids as everything went dark.

I must be dead. Yet I'm thinking. How so?

I'll tell you how Harry Potter...it's...not...real. If it was you would be dead. You can kill the components of your world but you cannot kill yourself. If you did...why, you would have to leave that world and become normal, like they want us to be...wouldn't you?

The voice was not of Ginny's but someone from his past, yet completely unknown. A new more familiar voice materialized.

He's right you know . It's alright to come back to us. We wouldn't mind. Just open your eyes. Slowly, now that's right. Good boy.

"Time for your medicine Potter," came the distinct voice of the Potions Master.

"Potions papers, you hate me, don't give me the poison." The rest of his mumbling became incoherent.

"Yes, well, he says things of that sort often. The boy is convinced I am his Potions Master." Snape sighed almost as if he cared. Maybe it was because he too had spent most of his childhood in the ward. "I'll leave you here with him. If he starts problems just buzz to the office."

"That won't be a problem, thank you Severus," said the wizened old man. Severus Snape, the medicine handler, left the room.

The man who owned Dumbledore Electronics pulled a chair from the window to the side of the bed. Everyone called him Dumbledore because his company was so famous. Albus Dumbledore of Dumbledore Electronics was christened Marcus Albus Evans. He gripped his grandson's limp hand in both of his.

"I owe you this long overdo apology. I don't know how to begin. Every time I visit I always wonder what you could be thinking. What world you're in." He stopped and tried to read Harry's expression. For the first time, he could not. Dumbledore never knew if Harry heard these frequent yet infrequent vocal passages, yet he still tried to tell his grandson what others could not.

"When I first brought you here when you were eleven, I thought it best...the only way to protect you. I never thought that your imagination would escalate into anything like this. It's almost mystifying. I think I slightly know what you're going through. I too have had my trips back and forth from the ward and not just for visits. I know you get angry with me for not always being here all the time. I come when I can."

That's wrong; the only one he was ever afraid of was you. Or am I wrong? Why are you doing this? This hurts me so much, why can't you see that? You said you understood! You don't know anything...

The thoughts: that Harry was in too much pain to say. His face grimaced and scrunched. And Dumbledore just trudged on. Harry was in a place where he could no longer reach. It might just be better to put him out of his misery. It might be more peaceful then. Dumbledore's time was almost up as he stood.

"Voldemort?"

Dumbledore jumped to attention. "Pardon me, my boy?"

"Once I kill him, will I die?"

Dumbledore wasn't exactly sure who Voldemort was in reality but he knew about him. He was supposedly the cause of everything wrong in Harry's life. If only Harry knew the things Dumbledore himself had done to contribute to this. Harry had so much right to hate him. But die? For what cause?

"Of course, no, my boy. You do what you have to do. You'll live a healthy life, fight what you have to," he said in light tones.

Harry looked somewhat calmed.

Dumbledore fiddled with his pocket and pulled something out. It was an electronic globe. One of the first prototype of the companies; a classic and thus extremely rare.

The door opened just then and a nurse was bringing back the small redhead girl who had shared the room with Harry for some time. It seemed to Dumbledore that he knew her, but he knew he knew nothing about her. She appeared a very special little girl and not in a disturbing way.

The nurse let go of her as if the girl's skin was poison. It seemed to Dumbledore that she wanted to say something to the girl but refrained from doing so in his presence. She gave him a seemingly feigned smile in Harry's and his direction, before exiting hastily.

The girl sat down on the bed and faced them, a frequent motion for this taciturn girl.

Dumbledore continued. "I know that it's almost June and you'll be going back to Privet Drive."

This was the most interesting thing about Harry Potter. He only stayed in the ward for ten months. It was around September that the sickness started to kick in. Otherwise than that, he could think clearly and act on his on accord. It was true that he raved about his 'magic school' but nothing too serious.

"And I wanted you to have this," he put the globe out but Harry was paying the globe nor Dumbledore no mind.

"He's not going to respond to it, it's electric. Electricity and magic don't mix." The expression on Ginny's face could not be read. Was she being sarcastic or sincere?

"Fine," Dumbledore sighed in frustrated tones. "You have it." He threw the antique unceremoniously on her bed and left. He was too old to try to please all the time.

She couldn't wait to show it to Luna and Neville; even if Luna would try to attack it and Neville was a vegetable. They were her friends. Ginny fingered the toy. "It's almost June."

(0)

June did come, but not as they all expected. It was around the time that Harry usually got well, but something happened that had never happened before. It all started at Hogwarts, but ended in the ward.

The Weasleys came in June to come get Ginny, which was sometimes allowed when the ward directors permitted it. Her parents, Ron and his overbearing girlfriend came to see her; with them they brought a dress.

"What I'm supposed to do with it?" Ginny asked them.

They exchanged looks that Ginny caught. "I mean, what am I going to do, wear it in the ward for fun?"

Nervously, her father spoke up. "Well, we were hoping that you would come out to dinner with us, now that you have the privilege." He looked to the rest of her family for support.

"Yes, we would love to have you. We miss your jokes," said that bushy headed fool. Ginny snorted unbecomingly. Well not that unbecoming for a ward victim.

"You'd look so beautiful in it," said her mother. So reluctantly, Ginny went to the bathroom to change into the new dress. When she came out looking beautiful although deadly pale, she looked over to Harry.

"You'll be able to come someday, too."

She was right.

(0)

Since Hogwarts had burned down, most of the students went home early. Harry stayed, as well as Ron and Hermione. That inevitably meant Ginny.

They were all in the Common room. There was a peck at the window. Harry couldn't see anything, but still he was curious. So he made for the window quietly.

Hermione, who had been playing wizard's chess with Harry looked up too late. Almost in slow motion, she tried to stop him from opening the window. It was a trap. It was always a trap.

Too late. It was always too late.

There was an explosion. Deatheaters accompanied by screams, fighting, Voldemort, curses and spells.

It was all too fast and too real for Harry to deal with. Naturally, Voldemort descended on him. Harry said the one curse he had been afraid to use all these years. The green light filled the room. The two beams of light hit each other at once.

So that's how it ended that June. Harry Potter killed Voldemort and Voldemort killed him. Harry could finally wake up. If the sickness was dead as well as himself, and once he was sane enough to see this, there was no need for the ward. He could finally go home.

(0)

Sixteen years later.

There was much dispute of who should own the hospital. He fought with Draco Malfoy just as he always imagined he would. But in the end, he won, just as he had done sixteen years ago. Harry was wealthy himself, even after paying off his debts. He sold a couple of books about his life and that was that.

In a way, to pay tribute to the fact that he had suffered and survived, he visited the ward for hopeless causes and confusion on a regular basis. The rest of the hospital disdainfully recognized this ward as Ward Zero.

It was late in the day and Harry was sitting with one of the patients. He was going to leave in a few minutes. The missus would be waiting for him and he promised this to be a night dedicated to his toddler son.

"Could you come with me? The elves are here. They do whatever we tell them. Magic is intimidating. Would you come with me at midnight?"

Harry turned around slowly. Could it be so? After all these years, had his land that he devoted his whole life to creating and destroying resurrected itself? What could he say? How could he deal with it? He said the only thing he could say.

"That'd be fine."

That's when he stepped away from Ward Zero forever.