The dream always started the same.
He stepped off the Hogwarts express at Hogsmeade station to a billowing cloud of steam that enveloped him. The warm steam felt comforting as emotions bubbled through him. Excitement, happiness, fear, dread. He looked around for Ron or Hermione but couldn't find them. Or anyone for that matter.
The entire platform seemed utterly devoid of human life. A toad hopped around hit feet and out of the corner of his eye he could see a black, shaggy dog running from a cat a third its size. The entire thing was utterly surreal to Harry.
"First years this way." The call came from the engine and Harry slowly made his way there. He tried looking through the windows of the train as we trudged along hands in his pockets, but all he would make out were discarded bits of trash and trunks people had left behind.
Before long he made it to the source of all the steam and there beside the engine stood the conductor clad in a bright fuchsia facsimile of the traditional uniform. All Harry could really see were the bright gold buttons on his vest, a golden chain going into his pocket, and a bright white smile. Harry couldn't discern anything else about him even looking directly at him.
"Excuse me, sir," Harry said.
"Yes, my boy." The man replied, and Harry silently mouthed the words my boy in response to the odd address.
"Where should the fourth years go? I fear I've slept through the ride and everyone has gone on without me."
"You've got a few years before you need to worry about that, my boy. Now head to the boats." The man swept his hand to the side and the lamp lit passage down to the docks seemed to call out to Harry.
"But I'm not a first year," Harry insisted. "I'm a fourth year. I've already taken the boats before."
"Are you sure?" The conductor replied, not unkindly.
Harry opened his mouth to reply that yes he was very sure of how old he was when he looked down. Where once the Gryffindor lion had rested proudly on his robe was now only a blank expanse of black. His ties were similarly a solid onyx. Slowly he pulled his hands out of his pockets. They seemed so much smaller than he remembered so much thinner.
"Go on now," The conductor urged. "You don't want to be late. They're all waiting for you."
"Who is, sir?" Harry asked, but the conductor did not reply. He jumped on the train and held on tight with his watch in one hand. And then as he opened his mouth he froze. Or rather everything froze Harry realized.
The billowing steam that had surrounded the platform hung low in a fog, but now did not move at all. The cat he had seen earlier was now frozen in mid-pounce a rat missing a toe trying desperately to run away, but never moving an inch.
The only motion at all came from the steady swaying of the lamps lighting the passage to the docks. In an unfelt wind the lights dimmed and brightened as their glass cages swayed to an unknown song.
Without thinking Harry made his way down the dirt path to the docks where he knew the boats would wait. Or rather boat. Only a single boat sat moored to the wooden dock and to Harry's great surprise there was already a passenger sitting at the bow. The figure was completely covered in a robe that hid their identity. Even their gender was a complete guess to him.
"Mind if I sit here?" He asked and received no reply. The figure looked steadfastly forward.
Taking that to mean they didn't mind Harry got in the boat with a small amount of effort and the boat took off. Immediately Harry began to feel a sense of unease. Everything else that had happened so far had felt familiar if only vaguely. Now he felt completely off.
He tried to look into the lake to see if the giant squid or even the merpeople were there, but there was nothing. Even the boat didn't make a wake as it moved. It was as though they were on black glass or ink turned solid. He looked back to the dock but saw nothing there. In every direction all he could see was blackness stretching into the horizon. The only way he knew it ended at all was where the stars met the inky black water.
"You're almost there." Harry snapped around as the figure spoke. He'd had to strain to hear them at all.
"I don't see Hogwarts." Harry replied, looked forward straining his vision, but all he could see was a small pinprick of grey far off in the horizon.
"You're not going to Howarts." Came the cold reply.
"Where am I going then?"
"There." The figures arm rose and a pale hand emerged from the robe. They pointed straight ahead to the small pinprick of grey that was starting to grow rapidly in the darkness.
"Why are we going there?" Harry asked.
"We aren't."
"But you just said-"
"Only you are."
"Why am only I going?" Harry asked a deep sense of foreboding growing in his chest.
"Because," the figure turned around and looked straight at Harry. "I'm already there."
The figure lowered his hood and in an instant terror struck Harry like a hot iron. His own face stared back at him. Yellow rotted teeth, sallow skin peeling back, sunken emerald eyes staring at him. The smell of death and decay effused from him and the only reason Harry didn't vomit was the terror keeping him in place.
"Join us, Harry." The boy spoke without moving his mouth and his hand rose reaching out to Harry as if to caress him.
Harry scrambled back in horror until he felt wood pressing against his back.
The boat stopped with a lurch as it hit the sand island that had seemed so far away earlier. Bare save for a single marble pedestal with a golden bowl atop it. Harry stared unblinking in mute horror until he realized what the boy had said.
"What do you mean 'us'?"
The lake began to roil and boil. Boney hands with scraps of flesh still attached reached out of the darkness and grabbed the rickety craft rocking it roughly from side to side.
"Join us." A thousand voices cried out as one all around him as the boat began to rock.
"Join us, Harry." The boy said in the same calm voice. His mouth which had never seemed to move with his words began to grow. The void began to expand until his face was only two sunken emerald eyes with an all consuming hunger below. "Join us."
"No," Harry cried as he felt the boat stop rocking and starting rising in a single direction. He clung to the stern of the ship tightly as it rose slowly leaving him dangling in the air as the ship became perpendicular to the water. He kicked out at the figure standing below him but never seemed able to reach him despite how close he looked.
"But, Harry. You're already here." The voiced called and Harry fell.
x.X.x
Harry Potter woke up tangled in sweat drenched sheets trying desperately to crawl away from the gaping void. His heart pounded in his chest like a runaway train as he began to realize it was only a dream. The same dream he'd been having all summer. Only this time.
This time, what?
He desperately tried to remember what made this dream different from the others. It was like catching a waterfall in his hands.
He remembered a boy. A boy that looked like him. And Hogwarts? No, not Hogwarts. Somewhere else. Somewhere he'd never been. And then. And then he couldn't remember. All he could recall was the sense of all consuming terror and dread. Even now in the bit of his stomach he felt the icy ache of something that wasn't right.
A soft bark took him from his thoughts.
"I'm alright, Hedwig. Just a dream." Amber eyes stared back at him in concern. "Really I am." He stood up and let the sheets fall away from moving to her perch. "You don't have to worry." He scratched behind her head and she gave a soft bark of contentment. "Go back to sleep, girl."
He watched her fold her head under wing and drift into unconsciousness with no small amount of envy. There would be no more sleep for him tonight that was for certain. His memories were still fading, but that terror he felt was still strong as steel.
The faint light of dawn had already begun to make its way into his room and Harry crept around getting ready for the day. Dark slack and a faded grey shirt that had been Dudley's at age 9. It still hung loosely on his wiry frame, but it was a better fit than anything more recent that was for sure. He finished dressing and made his way downstairs to the kitchen.
Dudley's forced diet from Smeltings had lasted all of a week before Uncle Vernon had put the kibosh on it. Calling Dudley a grown boy and the doctors idiots he threw every grapefruit into the trash personally and ripped the diet off the refrigerator. Harry suspected it was more due to Vernon's disdain for also being on the diet than actually believing Dudley was still growing.
Regardless of why Harry started the day as he did almost every day that summer. By taking out pots and pans and beginning breakfast. Soon the sound of sizzling bacon filled the air and Harry began to hum as he worked flipping eggs, cooking toast, and setting plates. Shortly enough he had the table set. Three plates filled to the brim with eggs, bacon, toast, sausage, beans, and even black pudding with one plate nearly empty with only an egg and a piece of toast.
"Boy." Vernon acknowledged sitting at his seat pulling out the paper.
"Uncle." Harry responded scanning the front page for any news of his Godfather and not finding anything.
Dudley waddled in next and took a seat at the largest setting he could find the chair only minorly groaning under his enormous weight. He didn't bother with a greeting before digging in. Not that Harry expected otherwise.
"Harry," Petunia spoke as she entered the room and made her own coffee. She never trusted Harry to get it quite right despite having the same two sugars and two creams every day. Harry wasn't sure why it bothered him.
"Aunt Petunia," Harry replied as she sat down before the smallest portion and he took the only remaining seat. He was still shocked that family that had begrudgingly fed him only scraps his entire life now gave him as much as everyone else.
Of course, it wasn't so simple as generosity. When Vernon declared the diet ended for everyone he started a new one. The boy was healthy he said so we'll eat whatever he's eating. The leap of logic that reasoning took was more exercise than the man had had his entire adult life so Harry simply nodded in acceptance and made breakfast.
The first day Harry had tried to make just toast and eggs like he would normally have, but Vernon declared it Nancy boy posh (whatever that is) and told Harry to try again. The result being much closer to Vernon's normal breakfast and only half of Dudley's.
So Harry sat at the table with his relatives and ate a full meal because if he started wasting food now he could only imagine was Petunia would say and felt completely alien with the situation. He sat and ate when a thought struck him. Something was weird about that dream, but maybe he could find something about it. There were books on 101 ways to prepare salamander eyes for potions surely there would be a book on recurring dreams. Or better yet a way to stop them. He'd had dreamless sleep potion before perhaps he could find something in Diagon Alley.
"Uncle Vernon," Harry said.
"Mmm." He replied still behind his paper.
"Could you drop me off in London on your way in to work today?"
The paper slowly lowered until Vernon's brown eyes peaked out over the top at him.
"What are you planning to do in London?" He asked suspiciously.
Despite the better treatment this summer Harry knew better than to ask to buy magical books about magical dreams. So he lied.
"I'm going to meet a friend. She-"
"She? A friend you say." Vernon started to laugh and went back to reading his paper. "You want me to drop you off at your girlfriends? Is it that brown haired girl you are always with at the station?"
"Her name is Hermione and she's just a friend is all." Harry said.
"Sure she is. Petunia, remember when we were just friends. How long ago as that now?"
"20 years now I'd say dear." She exchanged a look with Harry at Vernon's odd behavior, but Harry just shrugged his shoulders.
"That's how it starts, boy." Vernon said. "First your friends, then good friends, and then before you know it you're 'just' friends."
"It's not like that. She really is just a friend." Harry insisted.
"Then why are you so defensive, hm?" Harry opened his mouth, but had no reply. Why was he being defensive and since when was Uncle Vernon a psychologist. He shook the thought from his head they didn't matter.
"So will you take me?" Harry asked.
"Sure, I'll drop you off. You'll have to take the bus home though."
"That's fine."
"And use protection."
"Vernon!" "Dad!" "Uncle!" The rest of the table cried out and Vernon's bushy mustache wobbled behind the paper as he laughed.
x.X.x
"What do you mean you can't give me a statement on what's in my vault."
Harry had finally made it to the front of the line at Gringotts and managed to find what appeared to be the ugliest, surliest, and shortest goblin of the bunch. Which considering goblins were all ugly, surly, and short was saying something.
"We don't do statements, Mr. Potter. It's your vault. You keep track of it. If you want us to count it for you then it'll cost you."
Harry narrowed his eyes, "How much?"
"Half."
"Half? That's too much!" Harry protested.
"How do you know? You don't even know what's in your vault. Half could be a deal."
"I know enough to know that it's not."
"If you're so good at knowing what's in your vault then what do you need us for?" The goblin sat back on his rickety wooden chair before the marble counter drumming his fingers along it.
"I just want to know how much is in it." Harry replied.
"So count it yourself, pay us to do it, or bugger off. Pick one or get out of line I've got better things to do than listen to some wizard complain."
Harry sighed deeply. He should have known it wouldn't be easy. There weren't 75 different goblin rebellions because the malcontent beings were too nice after all. That Hagrid, a person who called a three headed Cerberus described goblins as prickly was probably the most damning thing anyone had ever said about anyone quite frankly.
"Fine. Just take me to my vault then."
"You're the boss, wizard." How the goblin could turn the word wizard into a pejorative was quite a skill. Snape must have learned how to say Potter from them. The goblin sneered. "Do you have a key or are you just wasting my time staring into my eyes?"
Harry flushed and slid the small golden key across the counter and the goblin carefully examined it without picking it up. What was different about it and the thousands of other keys Harry would never know.
"Boomfist," the goblin called out. Another goblin came out from behind the counters, presumably Boomfist. "Take Mr. Potter to his vault." Boom fist nodded and motioned Harry towards the vault carts waiting at the back of the room. "Oh and take the preferred customer track. He is one of our most valued account holders after all."
Even without turning around he could see the smiles across both their faces and he got the feeling that whatever the preferred customer track was it would be loud, fast, and probably near dragons.
x.X.x
An hour later Harry stood in the bright lights of Diagon Alley with a healthy number of galleons and an even healthier appreciation of goblin rebellions. Specifically of why wizards never seemed to negotiate with them and instead just beat them down into their holes until forcing surrender on them.
He let the soft breeze caress his face and enjoyed the smells of a non-dank cavern as he made his way down the Alley still unhappy.
"Bunch of no good, slimy, malcontent," Harry mumbled as he walked without paying much attention. "dissident, nitpicking."
"Stingy, obtuse, grousing, slimebuckets." Came a voice from beside him and Harry turned to see sapphire blue eyes staring at him in humor.
"What are you doing?" Harry asked.
"I thought we were having a synonym contest." The girl replied tucking a strand of dirty blond hair behind her ear, "It seemed like fun."
She looked vaguely familiar, but Harry couldn't quite place her. She looked about 12 which meant Hogwarts and with some embarrassment he realized he really didn't know anyone below his year if they weren't in Gryffindor.
"I'm Harry Potter." He said extending his hand.
"I'm Luna Lovegood." She replied giving him a handshake.
"Second year, right?"
"I was. This year I'll be in third. Unless I'm not for some reason."
"Have I seen you somewhere else too?" Harry asked, frowning. "I know I've see you around Hogwarts, but I feel like I've seen you elsewhere."
"You may have seen me in the Quibbler. It's my father's paper and when I write an article my picture is there." She held up a copy of the paper and Harry could see a smaller Luna waving at him from an article on the uses of radishes in warding.
"No, I don't think that's it. I've never read the Quibbler before."
"Perhaps you've seen me with Ginerva? I live just down the road from her."
"Ginerva?"
"You would know her as Ginny Weasley."
"You live near the Weasleys?" Harry blinked. "Her name is Ginerva?"
"It is. Ron is Ronald. Percy is Percival. Charlie is Charles. Did you not know their true names?" Luna tilted her head slightly. "I would have thought you'd known them."
"True names?" Harry asked, ignoring the challenge of not knowing his best friend's family. "I've never heard of true names."
"It goes back to the very beginning of magic. There is a power in names, Harry Potter and the power of a true name is not to be underestimated. To give someone your true name is to give them a power of yourself that cannot be undone. It is why pureblood families always give their child a true name and a common name."
"So you just gave me power over the Weasleys?"
She shook her head. "A true name must be willingly, knowingly given from the source. It's the basis of magical contracts."
"What's Draco's true name?"
"Dracarys." She said simply.
"How do you know all this?" Harry asked in amazement.
"I hear things and I… see things." She finished after a moments hesitation. "Magic always leaves an impression wherever it goes, and I can follow it."
The ability sounded absolutely fascinating to Harry. To see and hear magic in beyond the normal ways was a gift he'd love to have. Far more than parsletongue at least. But the way she described it sounded… almost as though it were a curse. And then a thought struck him.
"I wonder if I have a true name?"
Luna's sapphire eyes widened in surprise before glazing over and losing focus. Her mouth moved without a sound coming out before collapsing bonelessly against him.
"Luna, Luna are you okay?" Harry held the blonde up frantically looking around before finding a crate in a small alley branch off from Diagon. He sat her there and grabbed her by the shoulders. "Speak to me."
"I can't hear your name," Luna said softly eyes still unfocused.
"What? Who cares about that. Are you okay?"
"I can hear everyone's name," she said. "It's like a breeze blowing in my ear. Yours is like a typhoon. All I can hear is the wail of the wind."
"Luna, snap out of it." Harry shook her as gently as he could. "Come back to me."
Luna shook her head sending dirty blonde hair everywhere before looking up at Harry quizzically; eyes back to normal.
"What are we doing in this alley, Harry? Did you find a nargle?"
"What? You just collapsed so I brought you over here," Harry replied in confusion. "Don't you remember?"
She hummed and began to fidget with her butterbeer cap necklace absently. "I remember our synonym contest and then we are here. We must have found a nargle though. They cause confusion whenever they are found and I'm definitely confused."
"That makes two of us," Harry muttered. "Do you find nargles often?"
"Not as often lately. But I used to all the time after…" She trailed off and seem to close into herself.
"After?" Harry prompted.
"After mummy died." She said softly and Harry suddenly felt terrible.
The frail looking blonde sniffled pitifully and Harry was left in a situation he was not prepared for or capable of. A lifetime of being locked in a cupboard at a moments notice had left him uncomfortable with physical and emotional encounters.
"There, there." Harry offered unsure of himself putting a hand on her shoulder. "It'll be okay."
Luna looked up at him with tear stained eyes and suddenly reached out pulling him against her in a tight embrace. "Promise?" she asked into his chest.
Harry wasn't quite sure what was wrong with the lithe blonde currently sobbing into his chest, but there had to be something. He might not know much when it came to emotions or women, but he knew that if someone was clutching him for dear life and sobbing less than 5 minutes after being introduced something was most definitely wrong.
"I promise, Luna. It'll be okay." He said as soothingly as possible and hesitantly began to pat her back as he had seen Aunt Petunia do for Dudley when he was younger.
"Thanks, Harry." She murmured, not letting up an inch on her embrace.