Disclaimer: Harry Potter and all recognizable items from it belong to J.K. Rowling & Warner Brothers.

Genre: Romance/Action/Suspense

Rating: MA

Warning: Will contain SLASH. There will also be quite a decent amount of violence. Canon-Compliant up until the 5th Harry Potter book after that it very little would be related canon. Any quotes/song lyrics that may or may not be used will be quoted again at the end with their original source.

Summary: It all started with a dream. That was when his world changed. With the continuing rise of Voldemort and his followers there was a new challenge being forced upon Harry. Though it still remains to be seen whether or not he can face this challenge and come out the victor of it all.

Parings: HP/DM, HG/RW, GW/DT, NL/LL, RL/SS

Embracing The Light

Goober Duck

Prologue

For the past 5 nights he had witnessed the same dream. It always began in the same dark room. Though he couldn't see anything but the mass amount of darkness he knew without a doubt that he was in a room. Ever so slowly time would pass and the only thing he could note in the darkness was the sound of his own breathing. He would bring his hands up to his face and find that he could not even see them. It was always in that instance that the panic would set in. He would begin to walk forward little by little with his hands out in front of him. Inch by inch he would move, and inch by inch his panic levels would rise.

With every step his breathing would become more ragged and he would move more quickly until he was in an all out run into the nothingness. The darkness was never-ending and if he could at least reach a wall, something, anything then it would all be okay. But the wall wouldn't come and the full on terror that he was feeling began to reach new heights. It was in this moment that he would always trip. Over what he did not know, but it always happened that one second he was running upright and in the next he was face flat to the floor. He could feel in his very bones that if he did not get out of this darkness that he was going to die. Full on hysteria would happen then. It was not the fear of dying alone that pushed him over the edge into the abyss of hysteria, but it was the fact that he could not see his death. He could not see the world around him. He could not see. If he could only see. Please, please let me see. It was like a chant in his head. Please, please, please, please, please let me see. Through his internal chanting he would then notice a whisper filtering through the darkness. Something, somewhere was whispering, or at least it sounded like a whisper. He tried to focus on the whisper, but the more he focused the harder it was to hear. He wanted to cry out in frustration but then the whispering became a shout.

"PLEASE!"

The whispering, shouting, whatever was his own voice. He didn't even realize that he was talking a loud. He was insane. How long had he been in this infinitely darkened room. And then it changed. Everything in an instant was changed to white. A room that was once blackened by the suffocating darkness was now filled with a blinding whiteness. It hurt. It burned. He could feel the tears rolling down his cheeks. Again he could hear whispering. This time he brought his hand up to his mouth and listened to the whispering. His lips were not moving. It was not his voice doing the whispering.

Rolling to his knees he began to crawl forward trying to hear the whisper. With each second that passed the whispering began to grow louder. Until it became so loud and jumbled that his ears began to hurt. The only thing he could gather from the cacophony of noise was that it was repeating the same the thing, over and over again. Soon the discordant voices began to unite and a chant began to fill the air.

"In the beginning there was Darkness, but then there was Light. In the beginning there was Darkness, but then there was Light."

The intensity of the voices began to grow and their insistence of the phrase became more aggressive.

"In the beginning there was Darkness, but then there was Light!" Over and over again they repeated.

Yes, yes, he got it. He understood. In the beginning there was Darkness, but then/now there was Light. Yes he got it. And then the voices would fall silent. Yet again all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing. Then a new voice broke the silence.

Whether it was male or female he could not say. The new voice began to tell a story. Never raising or lowering their voice, completely monotone.

"In the beginning there was Darkness, but then there was Light. We were all there. You, me, them, it. We were all there. We saw it happen, but we didn't see it happen. It destroyed us and created us in the same instance. She-he-it created and destroyed in the same breath. Creation and destruction. Opposites. One cannot exist without the other. Nothing can exist without its opposite. You cannot exist without your opposite. The only thing equal to you is your opposite. The only thing greater than you is your opposite. The only thing lesser than you is your opposite. Without your opposite you are nothing. Without you, your opposite is nothing. She-he-it created you solely for your opposite and she-he-it created your opposite solely for you. The world is full of infinite opposition and forever it shall be. Tied together by the fates and she-he-it. In the beginning there was Darkness, but then there was Light. Forever they shall be united, and yet forever shall they war. You, you were born the Light, and they, your opposite, was born the Dark. You've been kept from each other for far too long and the world is being destroyed because of it. Without the balance of Light and Dark chaos reigns. It is for this reason that he-she-it has bore you yet again. You must unite to tie the world back together. From you and your opposite greatness shall be welcome to Earth once again and life will flourish. You must unite. You must. Child, listen to me you're opposite will be everything to you, as it should be, you must seek them out. You must find the--."

And that was as far as the story ever got. He'd either wake himself or he'd awake to his aunt banging on his door telling him it was time to prepare breakfast. The first night it occurred he brushed it off as yet another twisted nightmare. The second night it occurred he was a little disconcerted, but he ended up brushing it off again and focusing on the chores required of him for the day. By the time the fifth night rolled around he was severely troubled by it all. He was dreading sleep and for all his efforts against sleeping, he did pass out falling back into the darkness. And now it was coming to the sixth night since the first initial dream. It was July 30th, the night before his seventeenth birthday, and Harry could feel the knot in his stomach foretelling something he knew would not be pleasant experience. Be it the utter silence carrying through the house, the unnatural quiet from outside, he knew something wasn't right. He couldn't even hear one of Mrs. Figg's cats wandering about the garden as they were prone to do in the dead of night.

Looking from his bed over to the empty bird cage resting in the corner Harry kicked himself mentally for allowing Ginny the use of Hedwig so she could secretly communicate with Dean without Ron knowing. Sometimes he was just too nice to people. But she had begged and pleaded with him gazing at him with those dark brown eyes almost challenging him to say no. He had broken her heart saying that he could never be with her because he leant more towards he own gender in preference, but he couldn't stand lying to her any longer and seeing her get her hopes up was killing him because he loved her like a sister.

Shaking his head trying to clear his thoughts Harry began to wonder how he could contact Dumbledore with his worries. Though maybe contacting the old man about this wouldn't be the right thing to do. After spending his entire sixth year with Snape trying to, and now successfully being able to, complete a occlumency shield Dumbledore had little use for him other than to send him to various people to be trained for the upcoming battle with Voldemort. He didn't know, it seemed that since his little blow-up in Dumbledore's office at the end of his fifth year Dumbledore had decided to keep him at a distance. Yeah, he was told the majority of the happenings with the order and kept up to date with the proceedings concerning Voldemort and his faction, but there was still something that Harry felt was being kept from him. Whether or not it was being kept from him on purpose still remained to be seen, but usually with Dumbledore Harry would bet his wand arm that it was being kept from him on purpose.

Letting out a sigh Harry glanced around his room yet again, this would be the last year he had to spend at the Dursley's. Hell he could leave as soon as the clock struck midnight if he wished, but he had promised not to leave until someone from the order had arrived to pick him up and take him to Headquarters. Peeking at the clock lying on his desk across the room Harry let out a frustrated grumble. It was only 10:47 still a good hour or so until midnight. He wished that whatever it was that he was feeling was going to happen would just happen now so he could get it over with. Glancing superstitiously at his toes peeping out from a hole in his ratty blanket, as if they were the cause of all his problems, he shucked the covers off him entirely.

He had enough, he wasn't going to just sit there and wait. All he ever did was sit and wait for the action to come. Whatever his dreams were telling him about his opposite, whatever, and the unnatural silence that has taken over his part of Surrey was enough for him to recognize something was up. Moody always said that one must have 'Constant Vigilance' and the crazy bastard was right. He needed to be prepared for whatever was coming and being holed up in his lousy excuse of a bedroom was not prepared. He had his wand with him, but he still had no right to use it until midnight without a massive reprimand or expulsion from the ministry. He needed real weapons, a knife, something that he could inflict a good amount of damage with.

Snape had talked Dumbledore into keeping all the weapons he had acquired over the year with some story of how Harry used to hold fantasies of torturing his uncle until he screamed for mercy which Harry couldn't really combat because it was true, though the torturing fantasy's were years old by the time Snape had come across them in his mind. Harry had moved on to bigger and brighter things like poisonous gasses and different colored fires. Now that sounded like a good time to Harry, shaking his head to clear his thoughts yet again Harry made a note to himself to stop going tangents when he thought. Slipping on his only pair of comfortable jeans and a well worn t-shirt Harry made his way through his room, stepping on every other floorboard in order prevent any squeaking that might wake his uncle. Reaching for the doorknob and twisting it ever so gently Harry almost woke the Dursleys with the laughter that threatened to escape. Very rarely did the Dursleys leave his bedroom door unlocked, though it had been occurring more often ever since Moody had a nice little chat with his uncle at the train station.

Creeping as quietly as he could down the hall past his cousin's room and then his aunt and uncles Harry all but launched himself down the stairs. Reaching the landing in a crouched position Harry allowed the quietness of the house overwhelm him. Dudley had spent the night at Piers making up something about going to a party and not wanting to disturb his parents when he got home late. However, Harry was sure he and Piers were really just going to spend the evening playing some video game yelling at twelve year olds about how much better they were, but Harry really didn't care it left one less Dursley for him to have to deal with.

Not really hearing anything that would alert him of distress Harry made his way into the kitchen. His aunt Petunia kept quite a few very fine kitchen knives for a woman who hardly ever cooked herself. Wusthof is what they were called. He remembered getting a severe talking to about how these knives had sent his uncle back quite a few hundred dollars and that if Harry did anything to damage them he'd find out just what his uncle could do with a knife.

Looking at the knife block Harry picked up the cooks knife and held it in his left hand. He tossed back and forth from his left to his right and then back again before shaking his head and sliding it back in to the block. As much fun as it would be to take down whatever was coming with that big thing it was pretentious of him to deal with the flash of it. He needed something that he could handle well yet hide if necessary. The steak knives were also to large for what he needed to do, which left him with the small paring knives. It wasn't the best type of knife to use when inflicting damage on a person, but it would have to do. Picking up the sharpening steel from the block Harry leaned his back against the counter and began to sharpen the blade. With a quick look to the digital clock on the microwave he noted that it was only 11 o'clock he still had a while before anything major was about to go down. Muttering to himself about the utter uselessness of the world he set down the sharpening steel and with the knife in hand he walked over to pantry. Grabbing a box of crackers off one of the shelves Harry turned back into the kitchen.

He grabbed one of the chairs from the dining table and moved to one of the corners in the kitchen. He remembered being forced to sit in the same corner many times growing up, either forced with his nose pressed against the wall in punishment or being faced towards the dining table while he watched his family ate. But now it served a better purpose. In this corner he could see the entirety of the kitchen and back door. His back was well protected with no windows or anyway for anyone to sneak up behind him. Even the entry way from the living room was in his view. Leaning back into the chair Harry began munching on the crackers he'd pilfered from the pantry while twirling the paring knife in one hand. He'd wait for whatever was coming this time, but now it was going to be on his terms that he did the waiting.

Word Count: 2,528