Twin Madness - FOLIE À DEUX

i - dépaysement

When Harry Potter turned ten years old, the caretaker of Wool's Orphanage had him moved to a different room. This room, although shared with another boy and frightfully small and cramped, was a vast improvement to the cavernous room all the ten-and-unders shared, with rows and rows of beds and all worldly possessions kept inside a trunk at the foot of your cot. The new room was small for two people, but Harry was always good at economizing, and now he had a desk, a wardrobe, a nightstand, and wallspace. The biggest problem, which he brought up to the Missus, was that he could not room with his sister, Jinhai.

Jin and Harry were more than siblings, they were best friends. The level of understanding between them was completely foreign to their lonely peers at Wool's, who would often take out their jealousy as ruthless bullying - if they could catch them. Jin and Harry were very fast, and Wool's was a very old building. This meant windy staircases, doors to nowhere, low-hanging rafters, and loose boards that, in some places, could lead straight to the basement.

Yes, Wool's was old and dusty and creaked and croaked in the night like an ancient bullfrog, but it was Harry and Jin's home, and all they knew. All struggles were navigated together, all successes celebrated between them.

Harry and Jinhai did not take kindly to being separated. Separately and as one, they complained and yelled and screamed and cried at Missus Keys, but she would not budge. Boys belong in the east wing, and girls in the west. You'll have to grow up sometime, I'm doing you two a favor. Jesus, do you brats ever shut up?

Dejected, the twins returned to their separate worlds in opposite wings of the winding corridors of Wool's. Harry had never slept without his sister in the next bed over, and he didn't know what he would do when the night terrors that frequently plagued him inevitably arrived, and Jin wasn't there for him to find calm in. Jin was the strongest of the two, at least mentally - Harry could run circles past the older boys at the Orphanage and knew how to dodge a switchblade - but Jin knew which streets belonged to the hookers and gangs and which they could beg at to scam strangers with pressed suits out of a few quid. Her eyes were sharper and she didn't need glasses like Harry, and she was just as fierce as Harry when she wanted to be.

Harry himself was, at ten, known as the crazy kid who saw shadows crawl across the room and disappears when you chase him and reappears on the roof. Surely, strange things seemed to happen around both of them. If they weren't ostracized for being odd themselves, then they were for the fact that Rob McCane's switchblade melted in his hand when he tried to mug Harry in a dark corridor after dinner one night.

All the older kids, Harry found, were much more likely to have criminal records than honor roll. He wanted nothing to do with them, and he sure as hell wanted to keep them away from his sister. But rooming was completely random: Harry could get stuck with a seventeen year old arsonist more likely than another ten year old.

Still, Harry had no choice. He marched away from his sister towards the east wing, feeling as though a rope was pulled taut between them, more noticeable and painful with each step.

Harry's room was on the second floor, meaning a twenty foot drop if he wanted to get out fast - not good. The beige walls were completely barren - very good, either he would be alone for a while or his roommate would be another ten year old. A fluorescent bulb blinked weakly above him, bathing the small dormitory in pale yellow light. A beat up old oak wardrobe stood in the corner nearest the door, and a desk was at the far end under the window. Two bed flanked it, sturdier than the old cots Harry was used to, but whatever springs they once held were either stolen or broken by now.

Harry didn't have much of his own things, as any inheritance from dead parents wasn't collected until you were ten and Harry and Jin's hadn't arrived yet, but the few knickknacks and trinkets he did have he quickly set out. A few postcards he'd got for free showing the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Mount Fuji in Tokyo, and the Empire State Building of New York City were pinned to the wall above his bed. A flashlight was set at his nightstand for easy access and a backup set of batteries found their home in a convenient loose floorboard under his bed. A flip-out razor he'd stolen off Peter Jobs was to hide there until he went out, and a magic eightball, box of good teabags, and a coffee can full of coins and cash joined the floorboard stash. Harry's clothes (of which there were few variations of tees and jeans) were hung in the wardrobe (which had scorch marks, what the hell), and his photos of him and Jinhai, his prized possessions, were to go under the mattress.