Disclaimer: Harry Potter is JK Rowling's, The Matrix is The Wachowski Brothers'.
His hands slammed into the white ground- surroundings - thing.
'No!'
'Why are you finding this hard to believe?' The man's deep voice came back, getting to his head.
'You're telling me, my parents died … Cedric died… for nothing!'
'No. I'm telling you they never died, because they never really existed.'
Harry glared at the man before him. He should loath him, he should want to rip him apart for desecrating everything dear, sacred and loved.
Instead he was relieved by Morpheus' question, 'How are you feeling?'
Harry was ... enraged? Furious? Incensed?
But his voice knew the real answer. 'Tired,' He sighed out. 'Tired, and yet, relieved.'
'How so?'
'It's… that life… isn't real, and I'm in reality, outside.'
The man smiled, it was a smile which spoke volumes, restricted and soft, but wise and knowing.
'You are starting to believe.'
In a flash a strange sensation enveloped his brain, as if a trickle of cold water had penetrated from the point where the top of his neck met his skull. With amazing speed, it flowed everywhere in his head, rushing him back to his senses, and then rebounding, as if being drained away by the metal currently exiting the back of his head.
'You alright?' The young boy asked. Apart from Harry, the only youth on the vessel he had been introduced to a few hours before was this boy. Apparently his name was The Kid, which Harry found hard to believe at first.
Morpheus flanked him staring down at him in anticipation, Harry sat up, rubbing the back of his neck, hands contacting the cold metal there. The Kid's his short brown hair and his kind eyes came into focus in front of him, so did a black man with dreadlocks, and a woman with messy, blonde-white hair which stuck up everywhere, reminding him of Tonks.
Who isn't real.
They all regarded him with interest. In normal circumstances, he would have felt awkward, sitting like this, being examined. But nothing was normal about this situation. All he felt mattered now was the realisations coming into being in his head. The ebbing away of the sickening shock, and the forming of an unparalleled calm.
This feels real. And I feel really sleepy.
He gave out a long, relaxed yawn. And the woman with the interesting hair suggested a nap. To which he wholeheartedly agreed to, much to his examiners' amusement.
'Rest now, wizard. There's plenty of time to dwell on things later.'
Wizard.
What he was, what he used to believe in.
'You know, you're the first one freed from your kind,' spiky-hair stated, 'Very exciting, usually you guys are so taken in by that world you never doubt reality.'
'First wizard freed?' He repeated.
'First ever, very exciting' She smiled, 'Look kid, trust us. This whole thing, it is worth it.'
'My name's Kid.' The brown haired boy teased.
She ignored him. 'Would you like some rest, Harry?'
He nodded, silently, there was much still he had to think about. 'I'm Cas, by the way, and this is Link, and you haven't met ….'
'I believe you suggested rest Cassandra,' Morpheus' deep voice gently boomed out.
'Right, come on I'll show you a palce you can sleep.'
Harry Potter.
A fake name, a slave name.
Staring at the grey metal above him had occupied him for the better part of an hour. He would grow accustomed to it, but in that hour Harry found out how unbelievably lovely a boring grey ceiling could be, simply because it was real.
He was real.
Harry Potter was a figment of some sick computer's imagination. If they had one. Or rather, Voldemort was and… Why was he bothering with people that didn't exist?
They do exist, He chided himself, They just haven't woken up.
A fierce desire to free everyone bubbled in him. Everyone. They all deserved to be free.
But not all can handle it. Morpheus' voice boomed again, in his head.
His thoughts wandered to his lost abilities. He was no longer a wizard. Would he miss magic?
His stomach tightened. Yes, of course he would be able to use spells if he wanted in the Matrix, but here… magic wasn't real. It was possible that it never was. Harry's ruminations stopped at that point. He let the realization sink in.
No longer a Wizard. No longer bound. The first Wizard to be freed. No more magic. He used to be a Wizard.
Wizard, he mused, well Hogwarts, fake life, I shall take a name in remembrance of you. I am Wizard, the freed Harry Potter.
'Hey! Wizard-boy, you wanna eat?' An unfamiliar female voice permeated the chamber.
'Be right there!' He answered.
He was hungry.