June 1996. The summer after fifth year.

Snape hung in the air, helpless, awake and struggling, or unconscious, flung against a wall, bleeding, and James held the wand, or Sirius, young and healthy, glancing over to flash Harry a brilliant, wicked smile and Harry wanted to vomit.

Harry woke up with his stomach quaking, turned his face into the pillow and groaned.

If it weren't for Snape, he wouldn't feel this way.

If it weren't for Snape, Sirius might still be alive.

But Harry didn't want to think about how things could have been, should have been, different. He felt a feverish wave of hatred for Dumbledore, but he let it pass. He didn't want to think. He didn't want to remember what should have been done, could have been done.

The Dursleys stared at him in wary silence when he dragged himself downstairs. Harry tried not to look at them. Most of all he didn't want to see his aunt, didn't want to glimpse more secrets in the tightness of her mouth, in the whiteness of her startled eyes. For once, Harry was glad that she hardly ever spoke about his parents.

The day wore on, full of hushed looks and the things Harry hated to remember. In the heat of the afternoon he slipped outside. He didn't really have chores anymore, but still he found himself on his knees in the dirt, attacking the weeds in the garden.

He felt satisfaction in ripping the plants out of the earth, using his muscles and feeling the ground give around each embedded root. His thoughts drifted to the Weasleys' pest problems... Troublesome garden gnomes. Magical spells. Compared to this work, it seemed like a game.

In the summer sun, surrounded by garden walls, surrounded by neighbouring gardens on the most ordinary street in Surrey, the whole situation suddenly seemed fantastical to Harry. Impossible. Absurd.

For the very first time since he got the letter, and it had been like an escape from his nightmare - for the first time, Harry found himself imagining, wishing, that it had all been a dream.

He wished that there were no such thing as magic. Or at least that he, Harry, had nothing to do with it.