Even Stranger Magic

Everything was weird and Harry didn't like it.

Harry didn't like that he fought with Steve. Harry didn't like that the horrible group of people who ate lunch with him every weekday had been divided in half. Harry didn't like that Steve didn't talk to him anymore. Harry didn't like that Theo was lying to him.

Everything was weird.

Harry especially didn't like that Steve didn't want him to fix his leg and Billy said he had to anyway.

It was uncomfortable and Harry itched on the inside while one of El's friends - Dustin - was pulled from the living room with Billy, leaving Harry and Steve alone.

"I told Billy to not bother you," Steve said flatly, not looking at Harry.

Harry wanted to leave, he didn't want to be somewhere he wasn't wanted, but broken bones hurt. Harry knew they hurt, Harry knew he could fix it. Harry didn't want Steve to be hurting.

Harry didn't want things to be weird and he didn't want Steve to be hurt.

"It's your house," Harry said quietly. He wouldn't stay if Steve wanted him to go. "But you shouldn't be in pain."

Steve lifted a shoulder up indifferently and still had his back to Harry.

"I'm fine," he said. Siri said that a lot - ‘I'm fine' - she was never fine by definition, almost always the opposite.

It was blunt and final though, leaving Harry with no choice but to turn around and positively flee back to his house.

Billy might have yelled after Harry, told him he'd drive him back, but Harry preferred to run. It was better, it meant that the ache in his legs from a sprint across town distracted him from the ache in his chest at knowing that nothing was going to be the same again.

Harry ran directly through the front door, through the living room, then buried himself in the bottom bed in his bedroom. El was on the top bunk, talking quietly on the phone, but Harry barely heard her over the buzzing in his ears.

The walls were trying to close in on Harry and he pulled the blanket up over his head. It wasn't enough and he had to pull his legs up, make himself small.

Things kept changing. They were changing and changing and changing and Harry did not like it.

Everything was fine - it was good. Everything was good and it was fine. It wasn't just fine - it was okay and that was good.

Then it changed.

The soft fuzz of the blanket rubbed on Harry's cheek and he pressed his palms to his forehead hard while he rocked slowly, breathing, trying to figure out exactly when things changed, why they changed, and how it could all be fixed.

He knew when, he was pretty sure he knew why, it was the fixing it that was evading him.

Harry hummed quietly while he stayed under the blanket, using his own echoing hums inside of his head to distract him from the buzzing in his ears.

Steve was hurt and everything changed and Harry hated it hated it hated it.

"Harry?" A voice broke through Harry's thoughts that repeated themselves in his head over and over - over and over until they were meaningless. Meaningless and unnecessary, Harry didn't want to keep thinking them.

"I'm coming in."

Harry had the palms of his hands pressed over his eyes and he couldn't see El when she slipped under the blanket with him, but he felt her. El was… El was the best.

Siri was the best too, but Siri said she wasn't in competition with El so it was okay for them to both be the best. Siri was Harry's twin, his first and truest friend in the world. Harry could say anything to Siri and she would understand him.

Harry didn't have to say anything to El for her to understand him. They spoke the same non-language that nobody else seemed to. If Harry couldn't speak yet, El wouldn't make him.

They sat in the dark together while Harry tried to force everything inside of him to be put back together in the correct order. Sometimes things fell apart and the edges were bent and damaged and it was difficult to get it back together.

It always went back together, Harry only worried about how damaged it would be from the fall.

"Water," El said. She had Harry's hand and her eyes were the first thing Harry noticed in the dark beneath the blanket. There wasn't any judgment or pity or anything on El's face - just patience. Harry had sat under a blanket with El before, that was what family did for each other.

Harry's family anyway.

"Water," Harry agreed quietly. He didn't feel up to being out from the blanket yet, he didn't want the lights to burn his eyes or to have all the noise of the world he muffled reach his ears yet.

El didn't need Harry to say that - she told him he should drink water, he said he knew he needed to, they stayed in the bed until Harry had all of his pieces back in place to protect the raw nerves inside of him and then they slid off the bed at the same time.

Harry kept the blanket wrapped around himself, it was soft and fuzzy and it had been charmed to smell like nothing at all forever. There was no strange soap smell, no cigarette smell, nothing.

It was Harry's favorite blanket.

Siri was in the kitchen when Harry and El walked in and she had food - a lot of food. Harry didn't know how long he had been with Billy then Steve then under a blanket, but Siri looked as if she had made half of a cookbook in that time.

"Cake or toast?" Siri asked while Harry got himself a cup of cool water. Harry didn't particularly want either.

"Waffles." El sat at the table and Harry sat down beside her.

Siri started moving baked goods from the stove and counter to the table and she shook a finger at El rather bossily. "Waffles are not good for every meal," she scolded her lightly. "If you want to get tall, you need healthy food."

"This is cake!" El pointed at the round cake with the hole cut out of the middle - bundt cake? Was that a thing Harry remembered seeing in a cookbook last year during Home Ec?

"It's cake in moderation!" Siri cried. "Harry, tell our sister that she can't have waffles or she won't grow!"

Harry looked at El and thought she had already grown quite a bit. She looked healthy and normal sized and unhappy with Siri limiting her access to the frozen waffles she liked.

"I think she'll grow," Harry said truthfully. "Probably not as tall as she could have though."

Because El spent years in a cell with enough nutrients to keep her alive and none of the things that children were meant to have to stay healthy - sunlight, vitamins, love, happiness.

"Yes," El agreed with Harry. "Waffles," she told Siri again. "Please."

Siri sighed loudly but she didn't seem truly unhappy to put two of El's waffles in the toaster. She did hand Harry a fork and demand he try the cake she made though.

It was delicious, honestly.

Harry had no problem diving into the cake Siri made while El ate her waffles and Siri had some sort of pancake looking thing that had icing on top of it. It was nice, just sitting with his sisters while he was wrapped in his blanket, thinking about nothing at all.

It was the nothing that floated through Harry's head that brought forth all of the things Harry hated in a neat and tidy list. Harry knew when things began to change, he knew why… he was hoping his sisters would have ideas on how to fix it all.

"Siri, El?" Harry poked the cake and focused very hard on it. "Can - can you help me?"

Harry helped them when they asked - when Siri asked Harry to fix Billy's face after his wreck or El asked Harry to help her learn to read. They helped him too - they all helped each other.

That was what family was for; that was what siblings were for.

"I thought you'd never ask," Siri sighed. She didn't even hesitate before she reached across the table and grasped Harry's arm in her hand. She looked at Harry with her earnest eyes - the nearly identical match to Harry's own - and she sounded sad, "You need to break up with Theo."

Everything was weird and Harry didn't like it. Things were changing too much, too quickly, and Harry hated it. Harry knew when things started to change, when Theo arrived. Harry knew why, because Theo had grown and changed as much as Harry had.

Harry didn't know how to fix it though and he especially didn't like the idea of breaking up with Theo and hurting him. Theo changed, but he loved Harry. Theo didn't care that Harry changed, Harry shouldn't care that Theo had.

Except Theo lied to Harry and he was sick and sometimes there was a look in his eyes that took Harry back to his cell and made him wonder if there was a part of Theo that he too could never get back.

Harry glanced over at El, silently hoping that she would have a different outlook on the problem that Harry didn't even tell them about yet. Maybe they already knew, maybe they had been waiting for weeks for Harry to bring it up himself.

El met Harry's eyes and she put her hand on his wrist, just beside Siri's, and nodded solemnly, "He's not good for you," she said softly.

"He doesn't make you happy," Siri clarified while Harry felt much like he was hearing a lecture long since memorized. "I love Theo, truly, but Harry… I think you were happier when you two were friends."

Was he? Was Harry ever happy? Was Theo?

"Theo isn't Steve," El said simply.

No, Theo wasn't Steve.

Harry only nodded to his sisters, he knew they'd understand —

They would understand that Harry had reached his capacity for talking and he needed to think about it all. Harry needed to think about how to make everything go back to normal, he needed to think about how he was going to fix everything that had recently broken, and he needed to think about Theo and what it was that was tearing Theo to pieces.

If Harry could hardly keep himself put together, he would never be able to do it for someone else.

Except for Siri or El - Harry would drop anything anytime to do everything for either of his sisters.

It was only repayment for all they did for him. It was repayment for sitting under a blanket with him, baking too much food to force him to eat, and for never walking away when Harry himself was weird, strange, and didn't like himself.