Author's Note: Enjoy!
Nightmare
"Get up! Get up!"
Harry bolted upright, as if shocked, and his head hit the ceiling of his cupboard.
Wait a minute. . . . Why was he in his cupboard? Why wasn't he where he had fallen asleep last night? Why wasn't he in The Burrow?
Harry opened his eyes wider to make sure he really was in his cupboard under the stairs.
He was.
What's this? Harry thought. Wait, I know what it is! It's just a bad dream. Any moment now, I'll wake up back safely in the Burrow. I just need to . . . to pinch myself.
Harry did indeed pinch himself – it yielded very poor results.
Well, that's that plan scuppered. Harry smiled in spite of himself, when he remembered when George Weasley had said those very same words a year ago.
Harry shook himself out of his reverie and switched on the light illuminating the cupboard. He shoved on his glasses – which were in the very place he always used to put them – and looked around the cupboard.
Yep, same walls, same carpet, same blanket covering himself . . . pretty much everything was exactly how he remembered.
"Didn't I tell you to get up? Up! Up! UP!"
Aunt Petunia?
I suppose it makes sense, Harry reflected sadly. If he really was in the cupboard under the stairs Aunt Petunia would be there, too.
But no . . . hadn't Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon and Dudley all gone off somewhere with Dedalus Diggle and Hestia Jones?
Reluctantly, Harry got up as Aunt Petunia pounded more loudly on his door.
"I'm here," he said wearily, then thought, Well, not really. This is just a dream. It was just then that Harry realized that he was no longer seventeen years of age. He was eleven – or at least he looked eleven.
"What the –?" he muttered.
It was as if he had been transported back in time – everything was exactly how he remembered it six years ago.
Maybe I have travelled back in time, Harry mused. But surely not, nothing can take a wizard back this much time can it? I mean, I suppose a time-turner could do it, but you would have to turn the hourglass thousands of times!
"Aunt Petunia," Harry said as he entered the kitchen.
Aunt Petunia looked shocked – as if Harry had never before spoken to her. She snapped out of it rather quickly and said waspishly, "Yes?"
"I . . . " Harry stopped – he wasn't quite sure how he would word this. "Well . . . the thing is, I was wondering . . . well – why I'm here."
"You're here because we were kind enough to take you in!" said Aunt Petunia, though she still looked shocked.
"But I mean, for the past . . . six years I've been living as – as – as a wizard!"
"A wizard?!"Aunt Petunia shrieked. She twisted her long neck over her shoulder and called, "Vernon! Vernon! The – boy has gone crazy! He seems to think he's – he's a – he's a – " Aunt Petunia was apparently having as much problems as Harry was on saying the word "wizard".
Vernon Dursley came trotting into the kitchen looking warily between Harry and Aunt Petunia.
"What is it, Petunia, dear?" he asked.
"The – the boy – " Aunt Petunia gulped. "The boy seems to thinks he a wizard!" she said in a rush.
"Impossible!" Uncle Vernon said firmly. "There is absolutely no such thing as a wizard!"
Petunia looked quite relieved that Vernon Dursley did not believe in magic, like herself. Harry, who had been listening intently, now looked up and said angrily, "But I'm telling the truth! For the last six years I've been a wizard-in-training at a magic school called Hogwarts under the greatest headmaster of all time – Albus Dumbledore! And I've met other wizards and witches. I've fought the evilest wizard of all time – Voldemort – six times and I've – "
"Enough!" Uncle Vernon roared. "I will not having you behaving like a raving lunatic, boy! So hold your tongue or you're out of this house for good!"
Vernon Dursley's face was purple with fury and only a few inches away from Harry's.
"It's true," said Harry, stubbornly sticking to his story.
"Go to your cupboard – now," said Uncle Vernon, his face contorted with anger.
Harry stumped back to the small cupboard under the stairs already planning on how to escape.
I can attach my trunk to my broom and fly off to The Burrow. They'll be able to explain everything.
But then Harry's heart sank when he realized something quite important. He didn't have a broom, or a wand for that matter. What am I going to do?
I can't even call the Knight Bus.
And then a new, horrible thought came to Harry. What if Uncle Vernon was right? What if there was no Hogwarts, or Dumbledore, or Ron and Hermione, or even a Voldemort? What if there really was no such thing as magic? What if – what if the past six years of Harry's life had been a dream?
A/N: This came as a sudden idea, and I wrote it mostly just for fun. It's fairly short, I know, but I didn't really feel like writing a novel or anything. Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I've never really written a story like this and wanted to try it out. Just imagine your own endings, guys, and if it's really good I might just write more to this (though probably not). Well, I hope you enjoyed it anyways.