Disclaimer: I am obviously not J.K. Rowling. I'm just borrowing her playground.

The sun rose upon a new dawn, as it had for many years and as it would continue to do so for many more, barring any unfortunate mishaps. In a tower of stone which struck a sharp dark line across said sun, Albus Dumbledore woke. He shuffled out of bed, and grabbed a hairbrush to deal with the giant knots in his hair and beard. Sometimes looking wise was really quite inconvenient.

Albus had dreamed more dreams than he could remember in his very long lifetime. Still he found this one odd. Perhaps they should hire a different Defense Against the Dark Arts professor. Yes, that was a good first step. Though Albus believed in second chances, he rather doubted the Ministry and for that matter, students' parents would treat a man who hosted Voldemort on the back of his head fairly. He scrawled carefully chosen words across parchment.

Dear Quirinus Quirrell,

It is with a heavy heart that I regret to inform you you are no longer a candidate for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. I cannot explain why at this time. Please trust that I have a good reason. I bid you luck in your future search for employment and hope you hold no ill will towards this bearer of bad news.

Sincerely,

Albus Dumbledore

P.S.: I would recommend not visiting Albania this summer. I suspect it would be detrimental to your health. There is a horrible magical plague sweeping through that country at the moment. Boils, nausea, and seizures, if you can believe it. Not a pleasant affair. There is no cure.

He sealed the letter and fastened it to the leg of his owl with the smile of a job done well, as he was not the kind of man to doubt his dreams, though he had little gift for Divination. He'd have to write Flamel, as well, and tell him to store his stone elsewhere. Now onto the subject of a new DADA teacher...

The Dursleys had been nothing but nice to him for the last few days, Harry reflected warily as he went to get the mail. Aunt Petunia even made breakfast today instead of making him do it. It was all very suspicious, especially since it'd started the morning after that dream, a change as sudden as flipping a switch. The colorful bruises all over his arms from pinching himself attested to the fact that somehow, he wasn't still dreaming.

He idly flipped though the mail, checking for anything interesting, and froze on a letter. Mr. H. Potter, the smallest bedroom... Today was... Today was that day, wasn't it? Could you have deja vu for something that hadn't actually happened yet? He walked back to the living room in a daze and handed the entire pile over to Uncle Vernon without opening it, curious to see what he'd do.
Vernon announced aloud the type of mail as he went through it. "Bills, bills, more bills, a letter from Marge..." He paled, and Harry knew he must have found the letter. He tensed in anticipation of the inevitable explosion. Instead, Vernon muttered, "Here, boy. It's for you." He shoved it back in Harry's hands, as if even touching it for too long would contaminate him with something foul. "You don't need anyone to go with you to get your supplies?"

"N-no... You're just giving me the letter? And you already know what it says?" Not that Harry didn't know what it said, if it was the same as in the dream, which it seemed to be so far, and Lily'd gotten one so Aunt Petunia could definitely know what it'd say, but that wasn't their reaction in the dream, not that he was relying on a dream for evidence, but...

"You'd get it anyway sooner or later, and this way is easier," Vernon grumbled, interrupting his thoughts. "That bloody tail... Just... go. Go to your room." Harry clutched the letter, and ran up the stairs to the smallest bedroom, snapping out of his daze. They'd moved him to the room the morning... the morning after the dream. Or group hallucination, as was starting to seem more likely. Group hallucination that was coming true? Uncle Vernon remembered the tail. He suppressed a slightly hysterical giggle. No wonder Dudley wouldn't look him in the eye.

He pinched himself again, but it hurt. So either he had pain in his dreams now, something he didn't discount, as he knew his scar dreams within the dream had been painful or… would be painful- or... the dream was real.

He scanned the letter quickly, but all seemed to be the same. ...Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore...you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...we await your owl… (What did they do for Muggles? He assumed Hagrid didn't break down the door of every single person who lacked an owl.) Yours sincerely, Minerva McGonagall... Even the supplies list was the same.

What did this mean? Was everything else going to come true? Should he have paid more attention in Divination? Or, uh, should he in the future take Divination and pay more attention to it?

But the Dursleys' reaction was different. He remembered Hermione's time turner in third year. Perhaps he'd gone back in time? A lot of people died in the final battle 'last time,' and some of them were friends of his. But he hadn't done anything to change the Dursleys' behavior, so that didn't make sense. I need Hermione, he thought in frustration. She'd be able to figure this out.

Well, Harry would see more proof one way or another when he caught the Knight Bus to Diagon Alley tomorrow to get his supplies- or didn't, if either didn't really exist. Could he catch the Knight Bus without a wand? He'd figure it out.

In a misshapen house nicknamed the Burrow by its happy occupants, the Weasley family ate breakfast and simultaneously depicted a state of perfectly controlled chaos. Molly tutted as she straightened Arthur's tie, while at the other end of the table, George tried to convince Ginny to take a bright green sucker from him as she eyed it suspiciously. Ron dug into his pancakes while Fred tried with little success to spin his wand on end.

When Percy unceremoniously deposited the caged Scabbers on the table, Ron dropped his fork to his plate with a loud clatter. He resisted the urge to point his wand at the rat and and say something he'd regret. Just a dream. Pale-faced with dark circles under his eyes, Percy said, "I don't want him anymore. He makes me nervous."

Ron eyed the rat, a horrible little shiver running down his spine. Fred and George didn't tease Percy, or threaten to put a rat in his bed. Instead, George touched his ear gingerly, as Ginny reached for a wand she didn't have yet.

Oh. He swallowed around the lump in his throat. Bloody hell. Why wasn't he panicking yet? "Percy, did you have a dream a few nights back which involved, well, You-Know-Who coming back, and Harry Potter becoming friends with me and saving the world, and you being an insufferable prick who ignored us, and... and Peter Pettigrew?"

Percy's gaze met Ron's own, and for the first time in this life, Ronald Weasley saw his older brother truly terrified. "I thought it wasn't real." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the clock hands all land on mortal peril, as Mum and Dad reached for their wands. Percy's voice rose in pitch. "I just thought it was a foolish nightmare but every time I looked at him-"

And Scabbers changed, morphing into a short, balding man who matched Ron's memories of Pettigrew, exploding from his cage. George tackled Fred to the floor, and Ginny yanked a frozen Percy under the table with her.

Fred left his wand behind.

Ron acted on instincts born from a war that hadn't happened yet, lunging for the abandoned wand. But during the war, he'd been taller. His hand fell just an inch too short.

Bright green light flashed through the windows of the Burrow.

On a windswept, sea-lashed island of the Pacific squatted a spiny castle known as Azkaban. Azkaban had no need for cells or locks, and only had one door, an unassuming wooden slab to the outside that was usually kept barred. There was no place to hide. The inmates were terrifying, but they were no threat to anyone except each other, due to the Dementors. They were imprisoned as much mentally as physically.

Today, a rare sight, a shimmering, translucent Patronus, formed in the shape of a monkey, danced gleefully down the corridor, followed closely by two Aurors and a scruffy-haired prisoner who shuffled weakly after them, beaming like an imbecile at his good luck. Dementors closed around them, dissuading the inmates from approaching the warmth of the Patronus, the warmth of a child's August, where nothing could ever hurt.

In a small room off of the main corridor, a boy huddled against the far wall as the dementors swept past, stilling his very breathing in the hope they wouldn't notice him, though every fiber of his being wanted to gravitate towards the light of the Patronus, the wonderful, beautiful Patronus, and implore them to free him from here, plead he hadn't done anything. Please...

His father once told him proper wizards didn't beg. Ever.

The people by the Patronus, the wonderful Patronus, spoke loudly enough for him to hear, even through the dull, mindless hum in his ears ever since he'd arrived, just another aspect of the maddening air of Azkaban. "-so we've got Pettigrew now, and illegal Animagi don't get locked up this long, so-"

The scruffy one, the ex-prisoner, no one he knew, saw the boy and said, "They're keeping kids in this hellhole now? What's wrong with you people?" The boy drew back, wrapping his arms around his chest. No, don't draw its attention to me, please don't...

Dementors did not need proximity to work their magic, and they enjoyed feeding. The weight of the darkness meant he couldn't move even if there was anywhere to flee to. He fell to his knees as the memories of Mother reading to him at bedtime slipped away, no matter how desperately he clutched at them.

The memories of pain and fear, in contrast, mostly from the dream world, grew stronger. "Crucio," whispered a snake like voice in his mind, and he gasped with remembered pain. Remembered pain that hadn't happened yet, or had it? He was here because of the dream, after all, because the dream said he would be evil, so pain from the dream was real, right? It certainly felt real. He'd screamed so much in the last few days his voice was near gone.

Proper purebloods didn't scream, no matter what.

Oddly distantly, as if from far away through a long tunnel, he heard the first man tell the ex-prisoner, "Don't waste your worry on the likes of him, Mr. Black. You had the dream too, right? He takes the Dark Mark and lets Death Eaters into Hogwarts, he does, if we let him run free. That's Draco Malfoy, there. Whole family's as corrupt as can be. His parents are in here too. No offense, of course. I know Mrs. Malfoy is your cousin. Just another sign of how you're a good apple on a rotten tree, am I right?"

Draco Malfoy bit his lip nearly clean through to keep from crying. Malfoys didn't cry. Malfoys weren't allowed to cry. He ignored the sticky wetness tracking down his cheeks, dismissed it as impossible.

Proper Malfoys didn't cry.