Splash
Harry didn't mean to fall asleep. He didn't.
All he meant to do was show El it was safe for her to sleep, safe for her to close her eyes.
El said his name and sounded scared - she was somewhere new and everything had changed and it was too much - so Harry laid down on the bed to show her how absolutely safe it was.
Then Harry closed his eyes and somehow fell asleep. It had been a deep sleep too, one that was filled with blissful black and the vague scent of something that smelled clean, like fresh robes from a wardrobe.
Harry woke up slowly at first, unwilling to give up the last tendrils of a very near-happiness. It was only his body demanding he find a loo that had Harry stirring.
"Sister."
Harry jolted, startled by the single word said to him. Sister?
El stared at Harry unblinkingly from the foot of the bed where she sat. El hadn't been too old to need someone to sleep with her, Harry hoped she had slept. She certainly seemed better, looking as refreshed as Harry felt.
After they sort of barged in on Steve, Steve made them eat dinner and watch a movie together. It… had been okay. Harry actually thought it had been fun, maybe, but Siri wasn't there and that had worried him. She had been fine though, Harry didn't get the sense that she had been hurt while he slept.
Harry would still need to get back to her quickly, he didn't want her to worry if Harry wasn't there. If she would worry… Harry wasn't as sure about his place by Siri as he used to be.
"Sister," Harry agreed with El. His voice was scratchy, rough with sleep. "We need to go see her."
El shook her head and pointed her thumb over her shoulder at the bedroom door.
"Sister," she repeated.
Sister… Harry was at Steve's house… he fell asleep.
Harry fell asleep.
"She's here?" Harry threw the blanket he was covered with off of his body so he could swing his legs out of the bed. El nodded and Harry tripped over his own feet in his rush to stand up.
He fell asleep. He shouldn't have. He could stay awake for days - 308.5 hours, twelve days. He could and he fell asleep and Siri was there.
El scrambled off the bed and ducked beneath it to grab the sparkly green bag she had carried with her. Harry didn't know what was inside of it, he didn't care either. It must be important to El, it was important.
Harry rubbed his chest when El opened the door and it struck him that Siri was upset, horribly upset. It was crushing Harry's chest, making him clumsy as he ran down the stairs. Siri was in pain, she was hurting —
Harry should have stayed awake, asked Steve how to call her on the telephone. He should have done something different.
Steve called Harry's name when he passed the sitting room, Harry ignored him. He could tell Siri was there, close by somewhere, but not inside the house.
When Harry didn't give control his focus, when Harry was distracted and thoughts rushed too quickly - Was Siri hurt? Upset? Angry? Would she leave? Would it be the thing to push her away? Should Harry beg her to stay? - his magic flowed. It was dangerous, hot; Harry knew what he was capable of.
He didn't want to let it lash out, he didn't want to hurt anyone. He wanted his sister.
The front door flew open before Harry touched it and there was Siri, she was there, she was there. She didn't leave, not ever, never, not yet.
Siri was curled up with her legs to her chest - there were birds tweeting and Harry's pulse beat frantically. It was loud outside, too loud - Billy had his arm around her, protecting her from something - someone - Harry.
Harry swallowed and his tongue grew, there was blood in his spit. Did he bite his lip? Did he do that?
"Siri?"
She knew he was there, she had to. She didn't turn and Harry's knees were weak. Harry's magic loved Siri, went out to her for all the contact Harry was too old, too embarrassing to receive.
Siri's hair - it looked nice, she was fitting in, she always did - flew in the same warped, wrong, dangerous wind that blew Harry's hair around.
"I'm sorry," Harry said. He didn't know what for anymore.
Everything?
Harry was sorry their parents were taken from Siri in an attempt to kill Harry. Harry was sorry Siri was treated badly because he was too odd, too strange. Harry was sorry Siri was taken and tortured and nearly killed because he wasn't able to die.
Harry was sorry that her life was darkened by his presence and that she was the only light in his life.
Siri sniffled because she was crying - Harry hated when she cried, he couldn't crawl away from it, he had to fix it - and reached up to wipe her face on the sleeve of her jacket.
"Do you have any idea how scared I was?"
Siri? Siri wasn't scared, she was brave. Fierce. Brilliant.
"I'm sorry," Harry repeated, everything that Siri wasn't. She turned and where flames lived in her eyes, there was only wind in Harry's eyes, scattering his thoughts. The magic rushing around them picked up speed, it grew further out of Harry's control the more he tried to think.
Think, think, think.
"Har?" Siri's eyes widened, the flames died down. Her hair kept hiding her face, hiding the panic Harry could feel in his chest.
Was it his panic or hers? Wasn't it all the same? As identical as their faces and eyes and the mirror images they reflected?
The Mirror of Erised was the only mirror in the world that reflected two different images to them.
"Harry!" Siri pushed Billy away and forced herself up - Harry wanted to sit, to crawl away, to say sorry until it became meaningless.
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry sorry sorry. Sorrysorrysorry.
A liturgy of sorrow.
"I'm not mad." Siri was speaking while Harry tried to breathe, couldn't stop breathing then. It was a reflection and Siri had to breathe. "Breathe," she echoed his chant, she knew him better than anyone in the world. Better than himself. Better than anyone.
Harry sucked in a breath, his eyes laser focused on Siri. Everything outside of Siri didn't matter, it didn't, it didn't.
Until it did.
Siri's gaze moved past Harry, there was a furl between her eyebrows that Harry could smooth out, could fix if he wasn't so broken.
"Go inside," Siri snapped. "It's - there's a tornado."
Super tornadoes. Tornadoes with the power to rip a house from its foundation and to kill anyone who had the bad luck to cross it.
A small hand pressed itself on Harry's back, sending a ripple through his body, breaking through the uncontrollable magic. It was going to kill someone - would have - if it weren't for that small hand.
Why wasn't it Siri's hand?
"Brother. Hurt?"
That was El. The hand was El. The question was El.
It wasn't Siri and that thought - that truth - killed the tornado wrapped around them quickly.
There were more sounds, someone cursing fluently, someone breathing loudly.
"Harry?" Siri wasn't looking at Harry but past him, at El. The fire smoldered and she looked down —
It ignited.
"Who are you?" Siri grabbed Harry's shoulders and jerked him hard. Away from El, toward herself, ripping Harry in half. Right down the center, his shoulders were in Siri's tight grip and the small hand was left behind.
"Sister," El said simply. It was simple, to her. El and Siri and Harry all shared a tattoo, a past, magic. El didn't seem to have other siblings, Siri was excellent enough that Harry could shar—
"You are not his sister!" Siri shrieked, clutching Harry tighter, pulling him to her chest. "I am his sister. You are a - a - DID YOU KILL BENNY?"
A bird cawed as it flew away, Harry whined when he broke out of Siri's grasp.
"El didn't kill Benny," Harry said, turning so that he wasn't touching either girl - neither of them. El stood on his left, her eyes big and wide - scared. Siri was on Harry's right, heated and furious at the wrong person. She didn't know El, didn't understand her.
"Harry." Siri lifted her finger and it was trembling with rage when she pointed it at El. "She was there."
Harry looked over at El slowly, wondering what he would find. Blood? Hate? Something other than a scared kid who just wanted the world to be a quiet place for her?
That was all Harry saw, El and the bag she had, the only thing she owned.
"That bag," Siri said slowly, still pointing at El with her finger like a weapon, "it was at Benny's, the day he was killed. I saw it."
That… Harry's eyes flew to El's and she shook her head quickly, her face paling at Siri's accusation. There had to be a reason, something logical, something like —
"They chased you," Harry said, knowing it had to be true. He had felt magic there, the day Benny had been killed. It wasn't the warm and curious magic that surrounded El, but the cold and uncaring magic that They had.
Harry could see it perfectly: El must have escaped, maybe she had her own feeling about Hawkins, maybe she liked hawks. For all Harry knew, there could have been multiple centers across the world and El had been at a nearby one. She might have ran, went to Benny's just as Harry and Siri did - unknowingly following their exact footsteps - and They followed.
They found her, They killed Benny.
It all made sense.
"They? Who? The White Coats?" Siri scoffed and when El shifted, so did she. "Har, she's probably one of them! Look at her!"
Harry was looking at her, he didn't know what Siri saw that he didn't. Harry saw a small kid, scared to even talk, hiding in the safest shadows of her own mind.
"She's not a White Coat," Harry said. He moved closer to El and held his hands open by his side. "El, show her your arm. Please? I know you didn't kill Benny."
El stared at Harry and she must have trusted him, that was what Harry thought. She searched in his eyes and maybe she saw some of herself in his eyes just as he did hers. She nodded and then held out her left arm and pulled the sleeve up for Siri without ever looking away from Harry.
"Good job," Harry said, forcing a small smile that El returned instantly.
"That's… what?" Siri took a jerky step toward El and El shrank closer to Harry. "Eleven? You're like Harry?"
"Like us," Harry told her, holding one hand out to both of them. He looked at Siri and tried to not be hopeful, desperate, needy. "She's like us, Siri."
"No, she's not." Siri pulled her left arm out of her jacket sleeve and her own small tattoo, her number and name for years, was clear as could be on her pale skin.
07-B
"She's like you," Siri said, her voice breaking at the end. "You were looking for her, right? How long have you known about her? Why didn't you tell me?"
Harry frowned at Siri's mark, not understanding anything she was saying. They were identical, mirror reflections on the outside. So why were they speaking two different languages suddenly? Had it always been like that? Had Siri been - been placating Harry by pretending to understand him?
Zero-Seven. Zero-Seven-B.
They were the same.
"I didn't know about El until in the woods last night," Harry said, struggling to get the words out when he could feel eyes - too many eyes, scratching his skin from the inside - focused on him. The buzzing was back inside of his ears, it felt unreal.
All of it was unreal.
"I wanted to tell you," Harry still had his hand out for Siri and she wasn't taking it, wasn't understanding that Harry needed her. It was embarrassing and immature, he was sorry.
"I didn't know how, Siri. Then I - I fell asleep last night, I'm sorry. Siri, please, I'm sorry."
Siri glanced down, a brief split-second - did she not see his hand? Or not care?
"I love you," she said, "but I - I need space. I need to breathe. And I need —" Siri reached past Harry and snatched the bag from El, ripping it out of her hands. "—that. It was Benny's, and you got him killed. And you," Siri swallowed and Harry nearly whimpered at the slicing inside of his chest, Siri's pain cutting him open. "You're defending her."
He was, because who else would? Siri defended Harry, took care of him. El had no one, no one and nothing.
"Yeah," Harry said, dropping his hand. "I am. El didn't kill Benny. They did. She's - she's just a kid, Sirianna. Like we were."
Were.
Because they were grown and couldn't share a bed, couldn't hold hands anymore. Everything on the outside was the same and Harry didn't know when their insides changed so much.
It was Harry, Harry who changed.
They changed him, it couldn't be fixed, no matter how badly Harry wanted to be like Siri.
"I love you, Siri," Harry said, forcing his eyes to stay dry, clear, honest. He wished that the others would go away, look away. They were adding weight to his chest and he could only carry so much.
"I love you," Siri said. No hesitation, no delay. She did love him. "I'll come back and we'll talk, okay? Just us? I - I need to cool off, think, I can't even think right now and everything is so awful."
He wasn't enough, he was never enough.
Harry nodded and stayed rooted to his spot when Siri reached out, as if she were going to touch him, then pulled her hand back and left.
She said she would come back, maybe that was the best Harry should hope for. That even if people didn't want to stay, couldn't bear to stay, maybe they'd come back.
It hurt, to see her leave. It wasn't her fault, but it was still Harry's own ache inside of him pulsing away on a bruised heart.
Harry… didn't actually know what to do. He didn't have a home, a place he could go. El sat down right where she had been standing, Billy chased after Siri and she left in his car, Steve - Harry wasn't actually sure where Steve went.
Harry couldn't leave though, because Siri said she would be back.
It was cool outside, calm after Siri left. Harry wound up walking around the house, choosing to sit beside the pool with his legs pulled up and his chin tucked on his knees.
The water looked so serene, as quiet and peaceful as Harry remembered flying to be. There were ripples, like waves of wind that pushed brooms and boys into clouds. It was blue, endlessly blue.
Harry would have done anything in that moment for a broomstick.
Flying had been one of the most amazing parts of becoming a wizard. To float through the sky, to fly high above the rest of the world in a place where he could only be himself? It had been everything.
"Penny for your thoughts?"
Steve walked around the edge of the pool, Harry had seen him balancing on the ledge after Harry sat down, but he only added to the picture of the pool so Harry hadn't thought much about him until he spoke up.
A penny for Harry's thoughts? Steve was looking at him, balanced on one foot as he teetered between the cement and the blue water.
"I wish I could fly," Harry said, blinking and breaking himself from the daze that the water had him under. Blink, Siri would be back soon. She would be back. Soon.
"Yeah, me too," Steve said, sighing and wobbling some. A breeze would knock him in the water - an opposite breeze would save him.
The world was strange like that.
"Is that… a thing you can do?" Steve's voice was peculiar, Harry blinked and looked at him. Blink, there was Steve, wobbling on one foot, looking at Harry openly.
"Can I… fly?" Harry asked, struggling to understand why Steve would ask him that. Did El know more about magic than Harry had assumed? Did she say something when Harry walked away? It didn't seem likely, but Harry knew his sister wasn't there to say anything either.
"Yeah." Steve grinned, a crooked slash of his lips that was almost… nervous? Was he nervous? Was Harry making him nervous?
"Like a mutant, or something."
A… was he…? Harry pulled his legs to his chest a little tighter, telling himself it wasn't disappointment that he felt. Mutant, freak; it didn't matter.
"No." Harry dropped his eyes back to the water and held himself together, made himself stay where he was because Siri would be back. "I'm not a mutant."
How bruised could an organ become before it stopped working? Harry could die, he knew he could, They were planning on it. If his heart kept pulsing, beating him with every pound inside of his chest, would it eventually stop? Would it all stop?
"Witch?"
"What?" Harry didn't blink, made himself not blink. He looked at Steve again because the prickle of his gaze hadn't left Harry's skin. Did Steve say witch? Did he call him a witch?
"I don't know!" Steve threw his hands up, wobbled then jumped to swap feet. "Maybe I'm going freaking insane, okay? But I swear to you that the door opened itself up, then there was some sort of crazy wind, and Hargrove was saying a bunch of crazy shit. I thought - I don't know, maybe you were like a secret X-Men or something."
Harry did blink, but time didn't speed past him. The beating in his chest slowed, eased.
X-Men? Where had Harry seen…? At - in Jonathan's car, maybe? Someone's car. Harry remembered being in someone's car and seeing a yellow book tucked in the door pocket, there were bright blue letters across the top.
"They're heroes," a boy told Harry, a cruel whisper added after he shoved the book down, out of Harry's sight. "If you were in the comic books, you'd be the Super Loser."
"Shut up, Dudley," Siri hissed, kicking carefully so as to not be seen by anyone else in the car. "You'd be the Extra Ogre."
"Like a hero?" Harry asked Steve. "You - you thought I could be a superhero?"
Steve didn't laugh, didn't immediately mock Harry and correct him. His easy grin was still there, crooked and… and sweet. Cute? It was pretty. Steve could have been a superhero, balancing on one foot with his arms out at his sides - he would have made a good one.
Harry didn't know much about superheroes, he knew he wasn't one though. Siri? She could be a hero. Steve too, probably. Not Harry.
"Yeah, I mean, put you in a jumpsuit and you could be Storm," Steve said. Harry tilted his head and Steve must have understood his confusion before he voiced it. "She controls the weather, it's badass."
Badass.
Harry liked that. Harry liked that Steve thought he, Harry, was ‘badass'. Harry should have told Steve the truth, that he wasn't a hero and never could be - Harry was designed by Them to be powerful and dangerous, not brave and selfless like heroes were.
He didn't want to tell Steve that though, he didn't want to ruin the moment, ruin the warmth that spread from his stomach through his limbs. Harry didn't want to destroy the strange flutter in his stomach that was his, it was his feeling - the one that Steve caused before. It… it didn't hurt.
Harry mimicked Steve's smile carefully, in thanks for the ‘badass' and the warmth and the everything.
Then, all at once, just after Harry tried to smile at someone who wasn't Siri and wasn't El, Steve fell in the pool.
SPLASH!
The water was cold when it splashed up and droplets landed on Harry before he could scoot away from it. Steve disappeared beneath the ripples for a second with his arms flailing. The shock of the water was refreshing, really, it snapped Harry from the moment he had been curled up in, from the frigidity in his body.
Harry was grateful to have been splashed, really. It gave him an excuse to reach up, to wipe his face while Steve popped out in the pool, sputtering and laughing.
There had been one tear, one tear that Harry could never differentiate from the pool water, that slipped out before he could stop it. Harry looked at his hand, wondered why his tears weren't as different as everything else about him.
Steve shook his hair, spraying more water at Harry, and he was laughing still, laughing, laughing, laughing.
"I guess if you need a sidekick it won't be me," Steve said. It was a joke, Harry thought. Steve was still grinning, not as soft as before, but still a grin.
Friendly. Nice.
The battering of Harry's heart against his ribcage ended with the splash - hearts used electronic signals, electronics couldn't work when sprayed with water. They didn't work so great in the air either, Harry remembered.
Harry stood up, didn't blink - didn't want the moment to pass. Harry quickly pulled his sweater over his head, left on the soft trousers that Benny had given him a lifetime ago. He didn't think, wouldn't let his brain crawl away or his magic to spread.
Falling was easy, falling was the easiest thing a person could do.
The cold water was a shock to his system, not an unwelcome one. It was a reset to his system, it calmed him immediately and muffled the whoop Steve released and the world outside of the water altogether. It was comfortable, sinking down and letting the water embrace him.
Siri would return and until then… Harry thought that he might stay in the pool. Steve was shucking his shirt when Harry finally had to push himself back to the surface, he didn't seem as if he were about to shout at Harry to leave, go away, give him space.
Blue skies, blue water.
Harry had space, time, freedom. It was enough until he could have his sister back.