Author's note: In this world, Harry vanquished the Dark Lord in his fourth year. (Cedric Diggory lives! ^.^) These are his last few months as a student at Hogwarts.
CHAPTER 1
Harry sat nervously at the edge of the Black Lake, a potions book open in his lap, staring off far past the hills in the distance, at nothing in particular. The old and peeling cover pressed ever-presently against his fingertips was a hot fire burning its way into his nerves. Thoughts of his future, and memories of his time at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, mingled together in his mind to form one of the strangest emotions he'd ever felt. As he allowed his gaze to go ever outward over the lake and beyond, it seemed to make its way straight across the world and back into himself. Yes, he had been spending quite a bit of time lately lost in the world of "What now?", and it had him pondering a lot on what has been. When Harry acknowledged this to himself, a voice inside his head reminded him that perhaps this was one of the reason's he'd been doing so poorly in his classes this year. He sighed lightly, took a small and determined breath, and looked back down at the text in his hands. He began carefully reading the tiny print that filled the seemingly endless pages, trying to gain a full understanding of it all in his own terms before reaching for his quill to write down what seemed to be the most important points. By this point in his schooling, potions wasn't so much about the history aspect of the art, but more about the methods of brewing the potions themselves. When Harry first realized this at the beginning of the year, he had been relieved, thinking exams would be easier. He was learning now how very wrong he was. This particular potion had no less than 87 different ingredients, and over half of them came from the same plant. All week he'd been at a loss when it came to memorizing exactly which parts and how much of them went into the potion, and the order in which they were added caused his mind to reel, desperately trying to remember it all.
"The Hollywart root," he murmured to himself, "to be added in three increments of half a teaspoon, precisely twelve minutes and 37 seconds after the veins from the Hollywart leaves." Shaking his head impatiently at himself, he looked back down at the page, "No..that's not right. '...precisely twelve minutes and 47 seconds after the veins...'" Before he allowed himself to grumble at having been wrong, Harry began to write down the correct procedure on his parchment, and continued perusing the page, careful to read out loud every step, then repeat it without looking.
After about forty-five minutes had passed, Harry had three and a half rolls of parchment filled with his scrawling handwriting. Looking over his notes, he grimaced at the way his already not-so-neat hand steadily deteriorated into almost illegible chicken scratch as the notes progressed, his lines going from bone straight to a steep slant towards the bottom right hand corner of the page. Sighing loudly and rubbing his eyes, he prepared himself to turn the page of his text and begin committing to memory the proper attire of the witch or wizard making the potion. It baffled him to think that a potion would come out any differently whether the brewer's socks were wool or cotton, but he knew it was important, and he matter of factly turned the page. He got about as far as the third word of the first sentence when a god awful noise filled the air around him.
"Wheeeeeeeeeee LOKLOKLOK gaaaaawheeeeee!" It sounded to Harry like a large housecat coughing up a hairball twice the size of itself while riding on the largest roller coaster in all of England.
"WheeeeeLOK gaaaLOKLOK," the sound came again. This time Harry noticed it was coming from the woods to the left of him. Nervously, he put his notes in his text, saving his page, and set the book on the grass beside him. He paused for a few seconds, waiting to see if the noise would start up once more. When it didn't, he quickly got to his feet and paced towards the forest's edge, gingerly pulling his wand from his sweater as he jogged. As he approached the tree line, the sound started again, and, wincing, he crept up to a thick tree and peered cautiously around it. He found himself looking at a small clearing, filled with sunlight and peppered with the last of winter's fallen leaves. Sitting on what appeared to be some kind of shrub at the opposite end of the clearing was Luna Lovegood. Her blonde hair was plaited into a long braid that hung carelessly over her right shoulder, swaying slightly as she stirred some concoction in a large cauldron that was floating just above the ground in front of her. She had on thick brown leather boots, and even thicker bright yellow socks that extended up to the top of her calves. Harry thought she looked a bit like a caricature of a muggle on safari, wearing short khaki shorts that were seemingly made up solely of large pockets, an oversized button up khaki shirt that had buttons shaped like binoculars, and cartoonishly large sunglasses with curved lenses that were so black and shiny they didn't seem real. She was sat on her shrub, stirring intently, as though the ear splitting sound coming from all around her weren't there at all. When the sound finally stopped, Harry stepped out from behind the tree and into the clearing. His arrival was announced by the sound of a leaf crunching beneath his feet, and though she had seemed oblivious to the loud screeching that had just transpired, at the sound of this crunching Luna looked up from her cauldron, though the rhythmic stirring went on as though her arm were on auto-pilot.
"Hello Harry," she said with a nod, almost as though she had been expecting him. Harry waved quickly as he jogged over to where she was, a deep sense of relief flooding over him knowing he was not alone.
Though Harry felt confident enough in his bravery and his ability to face whatever came, he knew deep down that the comfort and strength that comes with another's presence was second to none. He never liked to admit when he was frightened, and, thankfully, when someone else was with him most of his fears seemed to dissipate. Looking at Luna, he felt grateful that he knew he could truly call her a friend. His famous Gryffindor bravery would be nonexistent if it weren't for his closest allies willingly standing beside him ready to face what came.
"Hey Luna!" he breathed, allowing a wide and genuine grin to stretch across his face, which was slowly beginning to show some color once again, "What're you doing out here?" He eyed the cauldron curiously, and looked back at her just in time to see her raise her wand and gently flick it once in a sharp upwards movement. In the next instant, his vision was completely altered, and he thought he was going to be sick. Luna and the woods behind her were still in view, but they seemed so...different. So surreal. He looked back to the cauldron and saw that the once blueish mixture was now a color he had never before seen in all his time on this earth. Describing it would have been impossible, seeing as looking at it was almost just as difficult. In just one second, his whole reality was flipped upside down, more so even than when he had learned he was a wizard. That was just a concept he had to become accustomed to, and even then, something in him had slipped into place the moment he had found out, like a light coming on after years of darkness. It had felt so right. This...this was something else entirely. Before he could stop himself, he bent over and vomited on the ground beside him. Luna laughed and raised her wand again, whisking the vomit away.
"Sorry about that," she said, still chuckling a bit to herself, "it comes as quite a shock when you've got no warning." Harry groaned a bit and closed his eyes,
"Couldn't you have warned me then?"
"I'm sorry!" she said to him, "but time was of the essence. The fumes from this potion can cause blindness if you don't have proper protection." Harry looked at the strange glasses on Luna's face, and lifted a hand to feel his own eyes. He too was wearing a pair, and he was surprised at how lightweight they were, for they seemed so bulky and metallic. Luna's words sounded oddly familiar to him, and he searched his mind for where he might have heard something like that before when a line suddenly came to him, Will lead to blindness if proper ocular protection is not attained. The potion he had been reading about. There was no way Luna could be brewing this potion, it was far too advanced.
"That's not Cormac's Vein Enlarging Elixir...is it?" he asked, skeptically eyeing the bubbling brew in Luna's cauldron.
"Yes it is!" she said excitedly, placing her stirring rod on a tray that was floating next to her cauldron, "You're familiar with it then?" Harry stood for a moment, his mouth hanging open slightly, before responding,
"Yeah...it helps to promote blood flow, and when brewed just right it can be used as a cure for anemia." He spoke rather robotically, as he was still quite in awe, "This potion takes over a month to brew and is incredibly complicated. Why are you making it?" How are you making it? he said to himself.
"For potions class of course," she said matter of factly, "I've had to start over twice because I've been experimenting a bit. I think now I've got it just where I want it." Harry could only stare at her. He could not believe what he was hearing. She must have been working on this potion for well over two months. A pang of what he desperately did not want to be jealousy hit him hard in his chest, and he thought he might cry a bit if he'd been alone. Harry wished so very badly that he could be her in that moment, that he had the skills to do what she was doing. The looming NEWTs that had been at the forefront of his mind for the whole year once again took center stage, as did visions of himself as an auror for the Ministry of Magic. Visions that were becoming ever blurrier as the year wound down and he questioned more and more his abilities as a wizard.
"What's wrong Harry?" Luna asked, forcing Harry's self-deprecating thoughts to stop in their tracks. He looked at her intently; she was focused on grinding some gelatinous substance into a light paste with a marble mortar and pestle. Harry watched as she used her wand to magic the paste into the cauldron, and the neon color he could not describe changed slowly into another color he had never before seen. Trying desperately to ignore the urgent flipping of his stomach, Harry opened his mouth to answer, not really sure what exactly he wanted to say, when that deafening sound filled the clearing all around them and seemed to pulse through the trees. Before he could even think, Harry flung himself to the ground and curled into a tight ball, his face pressed hard into his knees and his eyes squeezed shut.