Life is But a Dream
Summary: When a stranger leaves Harry Potter on the Granger's doorstep along with several books, Harry grows up knowing many things. This is a tale of the ramifications.
AN: Despite what the beginning looks like, this is not Weasley or Dumbledore-bashing.
"Are you ready?" Harry Potter looked over at his sister.
She glared back, her head held high. "More than ready." She turned to the blank wall in front of them and shoved her cart as hard as she could through the platform's barrier.
Harry smiled slightly. They had been waiting for this day for a long time.
He quickly followed her through the wall, stopping for a moment to gaze in awe at the scarlet engine. Despite everything that he knew was coming, it was a magical moment.
"Come on!" Hermione urged, appearing a his elbow. "We have to get an empty carriage if we want this to play out in our favor.
"Right." Harry said, lifting his luggage onto the train.
They found an empty compartment near the middle of the train. They made sure to sit on opposite sides so that the could easily see anyone who came in.
About ten minutes after they sat down, when the train was about to leave, someone did. The person was a boy about their own age, tall, with red hair.
"Could I sit here?" He asked, rather shyly. "Everywhere else is full."
Harry carefully looked at the boy, then at Hermione. She frowned, their agreed-upon signal.
"No." He told the boy coldly.
He took a half-step back at the tone. He obviously hadn't been expecting any resistance.
"Oh, well, I'm sor-"
"Furthermore." Hermione cut in, her voice even frostier than Harry's. "You can stay away from us. Permanently."
"If you know what's good for you," Harry finished smoothly. "You and your family will never even think of us again."
The kid looked shocked and hurt all at once, and he just left without saying another word. Distantly, Harry felt a twinge of guilt, but he knew it had been necessary. He knew, with a childish certainty, that had just eliminated a threat with their keen wits and cutting words.
He was equally certain that nothing could stand in their way.
Hermione looked satisfied. "That takes care of that problem." She said happily. "Now we just have to wait for our soon-to-be-friend to get here." Saying that, she dug out one of her new schoolbooks and began to read.
About an hour later, the compartment door opened, and a boy with silvery blond hair and sharp gray eyes stepped in. His eyes swept the compartment and landed on Harry.
"Is it true? They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"
Harry turned to Hermione, sharing a victorious smile. /word for word./ This was the person they had been looking for.
Harry waited impatiently. Draco and Hermione had both been sorted, going to Slytherin with satisfaction. Hermione's sorting had taken longer then Draco's, but that had been expected.
"Potter, Harry." The deputy headmistress called.
Ignoring the expected whispers, Harry walked up to the stool and gracefully put the hat on his head.
"Well." The hat said after a moment of silence. "You've got your whole life planned out, haven't you?"
Harry jerked a little, startled. This wasn't the way the conversation was supposed to go. The hat was supposed to extol the virtues of Gryffindor house, while ignoring his requests for Slytherin.
"Am I?" The hat said quietly. It sounded almost... sad, although Harry had no idea why. "If you say so..."
It was quiet for a minute. Harry began to feel a bit uncomfortable.
"What?" He demanded of the hat. "What do you mean?"
"I..." The Sorting Hat began, then stopped. "I don't think it matters." It said at last. "I think it's too late for mere words. You said you wanted Slytherin?"
"Yes..." Harry thought slowly, jarred by the sudden change subject.
"Well, if you're sure, better be... SLYTHERIN!" The hat shouted the last word for the whole hall to hear. Shaking the hat's words from his mind, Harry ran to join his sister and their new friend. Just before reaching it, though, he turned to the headmaster and have him a long, hard look.
Round one to us, I think.
"What is it Harry? You look troubled." Hermione asked, concerned.
Harry jumped. He had been sitting near one of the windows of the Slytherin common room, watching the lake and thinking on the Sorting Hat's words.
"Oh...just thinking. The Sorting Hat said something odd-"
"Oh Harry," Hermione shook her head "You should know better than to believe anything that old hat says. Remember the books? And besides - it said to me that my heart could learn the truth. But we already know it!"
Harry smiled at this. Hermione had never been one to put her faith in anything that contradicted the facts that she knew. Even if they were wrong...
Harry shook himself as Hermione continued talking. "Anyway, what I came over to say was do you have the schedule memorized yet? If we stick to it, you should be free from your dratted destiny by the end of the year..."
Late that night, Ron Weasley sat before the fire of the deserted Gryffindor common room. He was trying to think, but he could only feel a sort of bewildered hurt.
What had he done?
He had never met them before, Harry Potter and his foster-sister Hermione. He had heard of Harry, sure: every wizarding child had. He defeated You-Know-Who and ended his reign of terror. His sister Ginny had long admired him because of that.
Ginny... Ron breathed out slowly. "Wonder if they hate her like they hate me." He mumbled. "Either way, she'll be so disappointed. She wanted to meet him so badly, even if she probably would've clammed right up if he actually talked to her." He laughed weakly.
'Why? Why hate people they'd never met?' He thought fiercely.
Deep within his mind, a long-ignored voice began to speak up. Ron let it. There was no one here to see, and it could hardly make it worse.
It whispered "They were told the lies so early and often that it became truth. And now they cannot distinguish between the two."
"But why?" Ron whispered, barely moving his lips. "Why target me and Ginny?" He never noticed that he automatically included her.
"You could have been great, together." The voice murmured. "Apart, you never will be."
Silence.
"What do I do now?" He breathed, but received no reply.
The young, untrained seer continued to stare at the fire long after burned down; trying to find the answers to a clouded and shifting future in a broken past.
In another part of the castle, an old man also sat before the fire, thinking his own thoughts.
What he saw today had troubled him, all the more because he had no idea why it had happened.
The sorting... he could see that. Despite the fact that James and Lily had both been in Gryfindor mention nothing - Harry was not the first child to be sorted differently than his parents, and he would be far from the last.
No, it was the look after he was Sorted. It was almost - bitterly triumphant. And the look on his face when their eyes met was nothing short of pure hatred.
Albus Dumbledore could admit, at least to himself, when he made a mistake. Hindsight is 20/20, and he knew now that it was probably a mistake to leave Harry at his magic-hating aunt's house.
But at the time he hadn't known what else to do. The boy's grandparents were long since dead (magical and muggle). His mother's friends had died in the war or went deep into hiding. Of his father's one was dead, one the unexpected betrayer (even after all these years, thinking of the destroyed friendship was excruciatingly painful) and the third legally and emotionally unable to care for an infant.
The Death Eaters were still powerful then, even with their leader gone. None of them would have hesitated to kill the child that destroyed Voldemort. The blood ward had seemed too good to pass up.
Albus sighed, leaning back in his chair. It had probably been a mistake, but he had done what he had thought was best at the time.
None of it, however, should have inspired a look of such loathing.
While Ron Weasley looked into the future, Albus stared into the past, analyzing and re-analyzing the was, the could have been, and what perhaps should have been.
Far away from the towers of Hogwarts, a third man sat before the fire. Unlike the other two, he knew exactly what happened that day, and why, and was well pleased with it.
Really, he had expected it to be harder. He had fought with the children many times in the past and knew them to be incredibly obstinate and stubbornly loyal.
But change those loyalties around...
The man's smile widened as he delicately touched the chain around his neck.
So much power, so carefully used, will bring about great things.
And if it didn't? The man was unconcerned. If it failed, he would try again, and again and again-
But it was unlikely to fail.
As one contemplated the future, the other the past, the third was content to dwell on the present, where he was quite sure he had the winning hand.
A/N: How did this come about? What exactly is it's point?
That's up to you to decide.
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