Even Stranger Things

The thing was… running wasn’t actually fun. Running was exhausting and seemed to do irreparable damage to one’s lungs. There was a sport that involved constant running, it must have been the basis for the Cruciatus Curse, honestly.

“Don’t stop,” Sirianna pleaded - more of a pant, really. It was a nightmare, trying to run through the woods of wherever they were. It was worse when Harry kept stumbling on roots, tripping and injuring himself.

Where was all that quidditch grace she had to hear so much about?

“Side - hurts —” Harry truly panted, sounding much worse than Sirianna was. It made sense, he was in worse shape than she was; he was tired and in pain and Sirianna wished she had burned down the place they escaped for causing all the damage.

“I know.” She did know, she knew all too well. Sirianna pulled on his hand, refusing to ever let go of him again. “Just a little further, I swear.”

Merlin. Don’t let her swear be a lie.

The trees seemed to be beginning to thin, or so Sirianna told herself. The sound of dogs had faded long ago, after Sirianna had fueled her panic into apparation, which made her hopeful that they were in an entirely new place.

They might be able to track them… they had all the right magic to do so, magic Sirianna never knew could even exist… but that would take time and energy and Sirianna didn’t know if they wanted to expend that on them.

Not Sirianna anyway, Harry - as usual - would probably be an exception.

Life was so simple before.

When all Sirianna had to worry about was her brother, learning magic, and smacking people who tried to get too close to her.

“What’s that?” Harry asked, struggling to stay upright. It had to be magic keeping him moving because Sirianna had never seen her brother so physically exhausted.

And they lived with the Dursleys for ten years, so that was saying something really.

Sirianna squinted ahead and her heart pounded painfully in her chest at what looked to be lights. They were near a city - town - something. Where there were lights, there had to be people.

Where there were people… there was danger.

“Stop.” Sirianna slowed down, encouraging Harry to slow as well. They were still hidden by the trees and Sirianna gently pushed Harry down by the trunk of a tree, cloaking him in the shadows so only she could see him.

“You’re bleeding, Har.” Sirianna kneeled in front of her brother and gently used her thumb to wipe away the blood on his cheek, checking to see how deep the cut was. It was deep enough that it should need stitches, Sirianna knew it would be healed up on its own before morning.

“So are you.” Harry wouldn’t meet her eyes, his were so lifeless it made Sirianna want to burn down the woods they were in. He reached out for her hand, the one she had placed on his knee.

Sirianna looked at it and tried to remember when she lost the tip of her pinkie, found she couldn’t place it. Was it during her forced apparation? Was it before then? Had it been cut off in one of the experiments or —

“No idea,” Sirianna said in a rush, curling her fingers in to hide the painless injury from her brother. She smiled; breezy, confident, no fear. Harry didn’t need to see any nerves, Sirianna wouldn’t show them.

They were out and they needed to stay out. That was all.

“What’s… where are we going?” Harry asked. He coughed and it didn’t sound great, it sounded like he was going to be terribly sick and Sirianna imagined she could feel the headache she would have when he was sick.

They had always been like that, before. If Harry was sick, Sirianna imagined she was as well. If Sirianna was hurt, Harry would limp in sympathy. It was worse, since the experiments began.

Everything was worse, but they were free and Sirianna had to make herself think of how they would stay free.

“Hogwarts?” Harry asked and there was hope in his voice, hope that Sirianna squashed down inside of her.

They weren’t safe there, Harry wasn’t safe there. Had anyone there tried to find them, tried to rescue them? No. They left them and Sirianna couldn’t count on Hogwarts not sending them right back to the cages if they tried to return there.

What if that had always been the plan? What if the White Coats weren’t messing with her head but were being entirely honest? What if - what if - what if?

Harry wasn’t going back to Hogwarts and as much as it made Sirianna want to tear trees down with her bare fists then weep dramatically - it meant she wasn’t either.

“Hi. Um… I’m Ron. Ron Weasley.”

“Sirianna Potter.” Sirianna grinned as she offered Ron her hand then twisted it to do a fist bump that made him laugh. “Don’t call me Siri or we won’t be friends.”

“Not Hogwarts,” Sirianna said, hating it fiercely.

Harry didn’t blink, he only closed down on the hope that had creeped through his voice before.

“Surrey then.”

“No.” Sirianna didn’t need to think about that one. She would drag her brother to Hell before she let him step foot back in the Dursley’s house.

Maybe not Hell, exactly.

Harry huffed at her and he was so thin, so scarred. Sirianna could see patches of his head and her fingers itched to smooth away the unruly mess of hair he used to have. She missed his hair, his smile, everything that made him such a pain in her arse for their whole lives.

It wasn’t fair, to have that stolen from him - from them.

“Siri… we can’t go nowhere,” Harry said softly. “We have to go somewhere.”

“Why can’t we?” Sirianna asked, latching on to what Harry said. Nowhere. That was exactly where they should go - nowhere.

Nowhere wouldn’t care about Harry’s scar, their magic. Nowhere wouldn’t see them as rats to experiment on, to discard when their use dwindled.

Nowhere could be safe.

“Come on.” Sirianna pulled on Harry’s hand, deciding to simply plan as they walked. It was quiet enough that Sirianna could hear the flutter of her heart within her chest, the edges of panic beginning to creep in.

“Har…” Sirianna squeezed her brother’s hand in a wordless plea and he caved immediately.

“Once upon a time, there was a brave princess…”

Sirianna didn’t smile, didn’t think she could yet. If she could, she would have while Harry began whispering a make-believe story to break the silence they were wrapped up in. Sirianna led the way through the rest of the woods, forcing down the fear that tried to stop her.

It was fate, or something, that the building with the lights on that they had seen before was a - a…

“Bus,” Harry said, breaking his story to take in what Sirianna saw as a stroke of real luck. There was a whole line of buses, each one a dirty while color and ready to take passengers anywhere - nowhere.

“Bus,” Sirianna agreed. It was late, cold too, and Sirianna walked toward the station with purpose. They couldn’t stay where they were, they needed to move.

“Siri, wait.” Harry was the one to yank Sirianna to a halt before they walked in the glass doors of the station. Sirianna raised a brow at him, impatient to be on the move.

“You can’t walk in looking like that,” Harry hissed. He used his free hand to spit on the bottom hem of his shirt then tried to wipe Sirianna’s face with it.

“Ouch,” Sirianna hissed when Harry swiped over a bruise. “Be easy,” she complained.

“Wimp,” Harry breathed.

Sirianna Lily Potter was not a wimp, never had been. But it gave Harry a tiny spark of life in his eyes to call her that so she made herself roll her eyes while he finished cleaning her face off.

“Now you,” she said. It didn’t cross her mind to be anything except extra careful as she cleaned Harry’s face off… he had been hurt enough, Sirianna wouldn’t add to the pain and the grief that seemed to have aged him.

“Better.” Sirianna forced herself to smile as she cupped Harry’s face and she knew that they were free, that they could find a place to be safe, but it didn’t mean she wanted to let go of her baby brother anytime soon.

Never again, Sirianna swore that to herself underneath the lamp for the bus station in Merlin-knew-where. Never again would Sirianna let anyone separate them or torture her brother - Harry was her brother, her responsibility.

The seven minute age gap really was insurmountable.

“Are you ready?” Harry asked her, patiently waiting for Sirianna to get her act together.

Sirianna glanced at the doors and swallowed harshly. There would be people in there… Maybe not people in White Coats, but people all the same.

When was the last time that she saw someone aside from her brother and the White Coats? It had been…

“Paper in the bin said it’s October 1983.”

“Yeah?” Sirianna breathed and stared hard in Harry’s eyes, the bright green to her dark, and couldn’t help but to do the math automatically.

Nineteen Eighty-Three.

“Guess we missed our birthday,” Harry said quietly, his hand a grounding presence as Sirianna refused to fall apart.

Sirianna couldn’t open her mouth because then she would laugh at Harry’s over simplification of the situation. They hadn’t missed one birthday, they missed four.

“Four years,” Sirianna said, sounding faint even to her own ears. It felt like a lifetime… but four years?

They stole four years from Harry, four years from her.

Harry, once again proving that he could read her mind, tugged her to the door then held it open for her to enter.

“They stole four years, we’ll steal the rest of their lives,” he swore.

If Harry said it, he meant it. One day, when Harry had healed, when they were stronger… they would be the ones to put the White Coats in cages.

And that sounded just fine to Sirianna.

They walked inside the bus stop with their hands locked together. Harry cringed at the sounds of the customers who ran around and laughed and breathed so loudly. Sirianna curled her nose at the lights that felt obscenely bright to her.

And the people… the clothes…

Sirianna wanted to weep. There were girls that she walked past that looked so cool, so mature. They - they were… they had to be the same age, nearly. And Sirianna was scrawny, sickly looking. She didn’t need a mirror to know that, she only had to look to her twin.

It didn’t matter, Sirianna didn’t need to be cool and mature and pretty, she just… it was unfair and everything was overwhelming and Harry was talking about buses and —

“I don’t even know where we are,” Sirianna groaned. She kept looking over her shoulder, sure that any second one of the White Coats would appear and laugh, laugh that it was a trick and she failed and Harry was going to die for it.

“Siri, look.” Harry was so calm, Sirianna knew it was a lie, a mask that made her itch to wear. She did look where Harry pointed though and saw a map on the wall.

It took her a moment to realize what she had suspected for a while - they weren’t in England. They were in the States, in - in…

“Albany,” Harry sounded the word out slowly, his finger tracing the star that said ‘You Are Here’.

New York, they were in New York.

“When we’re all grown up, where should we go?” Harry laid on his back on the grounds of the lawn, his face tilted up to the sun while his eyes were closed.

Sirianna rolled on her back to mirror him and thought of all the places she wouldn’t go. She wouldn’t ever go back to Surrey, that was for sure.

“New York, maybe,” she said after thinking about it. New York sounded so glamorous, fun. There were lights and movie stars and endless excitement.

“Ugh.” Harry’s hand found hers even without either of them looking. They were mourning - big word for a deep sadness - their return to Privet Drive and Sirianna knew it was bothering Harry ten times as much as it was bothering her.

“I’ll hate New York,” Harry said. “But if we’re going to the States, I wanna go to Alaska. Theo’s book said it’s cold and nobody ever wants to live there.”

Sirianna hated the cold, which Harry knew. But Harry didn’t like a bunch of crowds either, so if he’d go to New York with her then she would go to Alaska with him.

“Deal.”

The world spun strangely, in a buzzing mixture of lights and laughter and time. Sirianna swayed with it and her eyes clenched closed, trying to fight the sickness that cramped her stomach.

“Indiana. Siri, there’s - there’s nowhere in Indiana.”

Sirianna breathed in deeply through her nose and forced her eyes open, just enough to see Harry peering at her as he pointed to one of the stations marked on the map.

“What?” she asked, croaking and overwhelmed by all of it.

“Have you ever even heard of Indiana?” Harry asked. Sirianna knew he was faking the enthusiasm in his voice, he was doing it for her because Sirianna was being a baby when she had to take care of her baby.

“I - no,” she said. The spinning slowed and Sirianna watched Harry’s chest rising and falling, steadily moving. Rise. Fall. Rise. Fall.

It kept her sane for so long, it needed to do the trick again.

“So that’s where we should go,” Harry told her. “I… I can get tickets.”

Sirianna didn’t question it, she knew he could. Harry could do anything he wanted - it should have been brilliant. Harry could be the most powerful wizard in the world… if he wasn’t a lab rat, a freak, four years.

If Harry had been given his four years to learn and to grow like other wizards… if Harry wasn’t only a product of what they made him… it would have been brilliant.

They walked together to the windows where it seemed as if tickets were being sold. There was an old lady in the booth who hardly spared a glance for them before asking where they were going.

“We’re going to Indiana and you’re going to give us two tickets,” Harry said quietly, his voice melodic and magical. “You’re going to forget we were ever here.”

“And - and some money,” Sirianna whispered quickly, spotting the drawer in front of the woman. They hadn’t eaten since - since… since that morning.

Their last meal, that was what the White Coat said when it was delivered.

Harry had to eat and Sirianna had seen little booths with bags of crisps and drinks and sweets she didn’t recognize. Anything was better than nothing and they would need money for it.

Harry nodded and added that to his suggestion to the woman. The woman looked perfectly pleasant as she printed off two white papers, tickets, and handed over a stack of green bills from the drawer.

“Next!” she called, her eyes glazing when she stared right past the twins.

Sirianna pulled Harry away quickly, her heart racing again at the casual way Harry could use his magic. It wasn’t like that for her, no matter how hard they tried.

The twins were practically identical - the same green eyes, black hair. They were the same height (and Sirianna hated that, hated that she knew Harry should be taller), they used to sound exactly the same. It was only Harry’s scar that used to make them different, less identical.

Harry’s scar, Harry’s power, Harry’s refusal to scream… Merlin, Sirianna sometimes thought she could never measure up to Harry - she didn’t need to. 

Sirianna took the tickets and studied them, looked for a clock, looked at the tickets, looked around the station to be sure they were still alone. There were people - dressed brightly, laughing, so normal - but nobody in a White Coat.

“We’ve got twenty minutes,” Sirianna said, judging it the best she could. Her head was aching and as the rush of escapement began to fade, exhaustion was hitting hard.

“Long enough to get food?” Harry asked. He grimaced at the bills the woman gave him and passed them quickly to Sirianna. “I don’t - my eyes hurt, Siri.”

Sirianna knew they did, she could feel the ache in her own eyes. Harry was falling apart quickly as his own rush faded and they still had to move.

“Okay, let me look.” Sirianna took the green bills and was relieved that they weren’t terribly different from pounds, they were similar enough to the notes that Petunia would give her to pick up groceries.

The lady had given them three bills, each with the number twenty on them. So… so sixty pounds. That was a lot, enough for them to get food before it was time to leave on the bus.

Sirianna bought them a drink to share, a bag of crisps each, and a chocolate bar she tried to make Harry eat. Harry refused to eat it if she didn’t and he split it in half just as they had always done.

“Don’t eat too quickly,” Sirianna warned Harry. She had only sipped the fizzy drink and eaten one crisp and she already felt sick to her stomach. The White Coats had never given them anything like that, never anything with so much sugar.

Harry nodded absently while he nibbled on his half of the chocolate bar. His eyes were busy watching every person in the station, hungrily drinking in the details and warily checking to ensure they didn’t get too close.

Sirianna watched Harry, Harry watched everyone. They stayed like that the entire time, neither of them able to stomach more than a few bites of the flavorful and sugary food. When there was a voice over the announcements, stating the bus for Indianapolis, Indianapolis had arrived, they both tucked their food in the waistband of their sweats and walked toward the bus.

Away from the White Coats.

Away from the torments and horror.

Away from four years of their lives that could never be replaced.

Sirianna didn’t know what they walked toward… but she knew that it had to be better than what they left. It had to be, Harry had to be safe.

Sirianna glanced at the glowing sign on the bus as she lead her brother up the stairs of it. In a moment of silly superstition, Sirianna reached up and touched the glowing letters for a split-second.

Indiana.

Indiana sounded like a nowhere place, full of towns that would be nowhere. Nowhere, Indiana would be safe, obscure. Nowhere, Indiana would be where Sirianna could keep Harry safe.