Everyone knows about the dreams.

They're etched on my face every morning.

And Lupin will sigh and clap a fatherly hand on my shoulder and say He's scared of you, Harry, that's why he sends these nightmares, to trip you up. And Ron will scrunch up his face and shudder and say Bloody awful, mate. Don't worry, though, we'll kick his undead wannabe arse. Have we got anything to eat? And Ginny will wrap an arm around my shoulder and breathe a little too closely on my neck and say I'm so sorry, Harry with a tone that implies I wish you were dreaming about me instead.

But Hermione...

Hermione will wait till they're all done fawning over me, even though she's always the first at my bedside, even if Ron's in the same room with me to begin with. And she'll just lay a hand on my arm and say what she said when I woke up: I'm here, Harry. I'm right here.

What I can't tell her is that she's not. Not all the time.

Because the dreams aren't always Voldemort. Not by a long shot.

All those lessons in Occlumency and Legilimency and mency dotes and dohsie dotes and little mency divey have done something to my brain, I think. Because, more and more, I'm seeing visions of different worlds. Different lives. Different Harrys. It's as if only I can determine how things end up, and every possible reality tries to force itself into my brain so that I'll remake the world in its image.

I win in most of them. I beat Voldemort. Sometimes I even do it relatively easily. But sometimes I die anyway. And the ones where I lose...

Anyway. The ones where I win. There's usually a bit after, like in Animal House where, over the credits, they tell you what happened to all the characters.

In a ridiculous number of them, Ron and Hermione end up together.

In an equally insane number, I end up with Ginny.

I have no idea why.

I mean, when I'm awake I can say Ron and Hermione should be together. They love each other, and besides, I probably won't be around long enough to have my heart broken (which is a lie because it broke the first time she danced with Viktor Krum and broke again the first time she kissed Ron in public). But in my dreams, I see them at their worst, which is far too frequently their commonplace. The only people who've ever built a successful romantic relationship based on constant mutual verbal savagery were...

Okay, nobody.

And, Ginny? It's funny, because in the dreams she's idealized. A real Super Ginny. She's incredibly brave, and amazingly beautiful, and her breasts are larger, and her skin doesn't sunburn, and she's rather better at magic, not only better than she is in real life, but better than Hermione.

As if.

Some of the dreams get even stranger. I mean, really stranger. Almost as many end up with me and, of all people, Draco effing Malfoy. I am disturbed at how hot those get sometimes.

I really, really hate the ones with me and Snape. Especially the occasional romantic one. Eeugh.

And the ones with me and Sirius...

I just don't know. I just don't.

I swear to Christ, in at least two of those dreams I was raped by Dobby.

And in at least one other, Hedwig turned out to be a gorgeous female animagus who's been in love with me since I got her.

But what really gets to me... what really screws me up... is that I have visions of Hermione, as well.

Not with me so much. Her and Malfoy. Her with Malfoy the Elder. Her with Snape.

Her with Voldemort.

Her willingly with Voldemort.

I woke up screaming at that one.

I have no idea what's causing this - or if there even is a cause, or if it's just the stress of all the unspeakable shit that's been my life. But two things stand out.

I think I'm in love with Hermione.

And I fear it'll never happen. That we'll never get together.

Not in this life.