The Abuse in a Violently Different Dimension
By VG Jekyll
Not Beta-read

38. I Wish, I Wish

I wish I knew, I wish I knew
What makes me, me, and what makes you, you
It's just another point of view
A state of mind I'm going through

The days after Harry's unexpected reunion with his godfather Sirius and this world's Remus went by like in a flash. It was as if time was suddenly speeding up.

It was not unlike being in the middle of a Quidditch game and noticing the Golden Snitch. To him it had always felt like time started to go by in slow-motion, only to fast forward the moment his hand wrapped around the elusive Snitch. As if time was trying to catch up again.

For the first moment in weeks Harry felt at peace, content even. He wasn't on his own anymore in a world not his own. There were people who knew about him being from another dimension and they didn't blame him for having kept it a secret for so long. It really felt like a heavy weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

He found himself paying more attention in classes. Now that he had less to worry about, he felt like he might as well commit to it. Hermione would have been proud. He also tried to spend more time with people at the school. Those people mostly being what already started to be called 'the usual gang', consisting of Nathan, Jay and now also his brother Jacob.

Harry tried to devote some time on getting to know other people too. This could be people like Luna, with who he had long walks through the snow while talking about the most random subjects. Or there was Tarin, a Ravenclaw, with who he had to do a project for Transfiguration with.

Then there were the Hufflepuffs with who he sat and joked around with in the common room. One of them, Nyte, could talk his ears off and didn't appear to even care if he replied to what she was saying. It was nice to have people like her around for a change. He felt more relaxed around them and it apparently showed in his behaviour, otherwise they wouldn't have wanted to be around him.

Chastised as he had been by Remus during their meeting, he kept researching things that were different from his own time. He made a long list with on the left how he knew it to be and on the right how it appeared to be in this world. He kept making copies of the list, as he added things, and send it by owl to Sirius.

He also tried to acquire a Pensieve, which had actually been quite a hassle, until he remembered he could simply ask the Room of Requirement to provide him with one. There he found himself diving many times into the Pensieve to see what happened in Albus his office and what could have triggered his sudden transportation.

So far, he still couldn't pinpoint if it was the spell work or magical objects that had fallen down.

It was also in the Room of Requirement that he and Jay continued their training. The other boy hadn't known of the room's existence and had been very enthusiastic when Harry had shown it to him.

The Hufflepuff was sceptic when Harry led him up to the seventh floor and raised questioning a brow when Harry started to pace in front of a wall ornament that looked like a voodoo mask in the left corridor. He literally jumped when in the wall across of the mask a simple green door had appeared.

Harry smirked at him and then pointed to the door, a clear invite to Jay to go ahead and see where the mysterious door led to. Not being one to step out of the way of a challenge, Jay approached the door and carefully opened it. He glanced inside and then back at Harry.

The look on his face nearly made Harry topple over with laughter.

"What's this?" the boy asked confused and then entered, closely followed by Harry who didn't want to miss his reaction. "Is this? Wait, that comes from our Dorms, and that is from the Transfiguration classroom. And why is there a bloody axe embedded in the floor?"

Jay asked amazed as he whirled around to take in all his surroundings. "How the bloody hell did you ever find this place?"

Harry couldn't help but feel a bit proud for making the other look so baffled. He leaned against the door they had come in through and stuck his hands inside his trouser pockets.

He shrugged. "A house-elf told me."

"A house-elf? Weird. How does it work?"

"You have to walk three times past that spot, like I just did, and think very specifically about what you are looking for. And if for example, you don't want people to walk in on you, you have to add that thought, otherwise others who know about it can enter too."

Jay laughed amazed. "And you especially asked for a table filled with food?" He asked with a grin, as he motioned at the table standing against the wall on the other side of the door.

Harry shrugged a bit uncomfortable. "That is something that just keeps popping up whenever I use the room," he admitted. "What do you think of the rest?"

Jay started to study his surroundings again. "Looks perfect for our sort of training." He pointed at a doll. "You ever have a dummy, that's awesome. It's rather ugly though."

A wry grin shifted onto Harry's face. "Looks exactly like the guy he's based on."

"That's a man? Heh, monster is more likely. Maybe a vampire?" He lost interest in the ugly dummy and walked curious to a large chest to peer inside. He whistled when he noticed the Bludgers in it, immediately guessing their purpose there. "Smart thinking, Harry," he said admiring and petted the chest as if it were a dog.

Harry grinned and motioned about. "So, good enough?"

Jay shrugged, but grinned excited back. "I guess it will do." He glanced around again. "It needs a kick ass name!"

"I call it the Room of Requirement, though I heard someone refer to it as the Come and Go Room."

"How many actually know about its existence?"

"Here? I don't know. In my world... actually a fair deal of people, now that I think about it."

"So, how's your training been going" Jay then asked. Harry told him sheepishly that, although he'd been doing a bit of it, he'd spend more time with his parents, brother and relaxing. Jay had shrugged to that admittance. Telling the other that he could do what he wanted, Jay wasn't a professor, just someone willing to help Harry train.

This of course made Harry feel worse about not really doing his best.

Jay then asked Harry to show some of the things he could. This resulted in Harry jumping around the chamber. From the ground up to objects, aiming for a higher object each time and then from object to object. He did fall a few times, when assessing the distance wrong, but thankfully the chamber's floor accepted those tumbles as a sponge.

The objects, which were mostly broken and damaged furniture, were not as forgiving, and Harry bumped his head and limbs a few times roughly on protruding corners. It was when he was crouching down on a ledge some 6 feet off the floor when Jay called it quits. Harry glanced back at the table he had a had ran over in order to have the right momentum to make the nearly 10 foot leap, and thought amazed that he wouldn't have been able to jump that distance some weeks ago.

"Where's your wand?" Jay then asked, chasing a bit of the equilibrium away.

"What?" Harry asked, while shaking his head to get rid of the sound of his blood rushing through his ears.

"Your wand? How fast can you reach it. And come down that thing."

Harry left himself drop down to the floor, not forgetting to bring his knees upfront to bear the impact. He then walked over to where he had dropped his robes to get his wand out of its pocket.

"It's rather dumb to not have it on you, you know," Jay commented, but before Harry could defend himself, he continued. "Let's use the obstacle course now for defence. Do you know the Muggle game Paintball?"

Harry nodded bewildered. "Um yeah, Dudley did that for his twelfth birthday party. I was invited only as easy target, though they still only got me when they teamed up.'

"Who is Dudley?" Asked Jay as he levitated a few objects around to change the arrangement of the room and probably make it more difficult for Harry.

The dark haired boy faltered for a moment as he was once again reminded that Dudley might not exist in this world. His memories had to be so different from those of this world's Harry. He was lucky that Jay already knew about him.

"He is no one," he told Jay and then glanced around. "So, what is our target?"

"You can choose, we work together and let the Bludgers loose while trying to retrieve an object from the other side of the room. Or we are up against each other, start each on one side and have to reach the other's 'base'."

They picked the team play and stopped only when a Bludger grazed Jay's head and hit Harry full against his chest. The dark haired boy was still wheezing when they left the room and Jay walked slower on account of feeling dizzy.

He grinned at Harry though. "That was bloody awesome. Never had so much fun."

"Should we, I mean. Would it maybe be good if we had another person with us?"

"Like who?"

"Well, I dunno. Neville Longbottom?" Harry offered hesitantly. It had been something he had considered a great deal. Neville was after all the Boy-Who-Lived of this world. Adding him to the training would seem like a good idea.

"No way!" Jay said immediately. Harry was startled by his vehement rejection of the idea. "The guy is an arse. No offence, but he's got an ego larger than Wales and I'm not going to bother with that."

Harry shrugged. "No prob, It was just a suggestion."

In the dormitories, Harry took a much needed shower, before heading to the Library when he had arranged to meet up with Luna. He was earlier than he had expected, yet Luna was already there.

He took his books over to her spot. He sat down in front of her and as she glanced up at him, he grinned. She seemed pleasantly surprised to see him arriving early for a change and smiled back. "Hello Harry."

"Hey Luna. What are you working on?"

"Wrackspurts. It's a free assignment, though I doubt I'll get much credit for it. Professor Kettleburn will probably not accept it again, claiming I can't write it about something which he says is imaginary. Which is ridiculous, for how can he claim they do not exist, without having any proof of their non-existence?"

"Why are you writing it then? If you already know he won't accept it?"

"Because I want to."

Harry grinned at her answer. "You got anything good so far?"

"A bit," she answered. "It's hard to get information about, though my mother and father have send me some interesting reports about them.

'Wait? Her mother is still alive in this world? Good for her!'

"You know, they say you can see them with the aid of Spectrespecs," he told her and she stared astonished at him.

"Is that truly so? I never would have thought of that. Thank you Harry." She wrote it down and then commented offhandedly. "Your brother apologized for having called me 'loopy' in the past."

"Oh, did he really?" Harry guessed he shouldn't be surprised about that. The kid had a good heart. "And what did you say to him?"

"I told him I didn't mind it much, after which there was an uncomfortable silence. He then asked if he could sit beside me." She fixed her eyes on Harry, the usually glassy look was nowhere to be found. "Did you have anything to do with it?"

Harry shrugged. "Somewhat. I just asked him to tell me if he saw you were in trouble. Apologising and sitting besides you were his own decisions. He's really a good kid."

"I see."

"Have you ever seen a Therestral?" She suddenly asked.

Harry blinked startled and nodded. He should be used to her way of jumping from subject to subject by now.

"They are beautiful, aren't they?"

"Well, if you find the reptilian look to be beautiful, I guess. I just find them to be unexpectedly sweet. They seem so dangerous and scary at first glance, but are such gentle creatures."

"I agree. I wonder why we never have done them in Creatures class. Many won't be able to see them, but they can touch and feel them." She glanced knowingly up from her papers at Harry. "It's curious though that you can see them."

'Curses, outed myself again. I really am a bad actor. Guess Ill never get to be a spy. Bye career as 007. Wait, Luna can see them too? In my world because she saw her parents die, who did she see dying here?'

She answered him as if he had asked the question out loud. "My brother died as a toddler. I saw him drown in the pond."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that." Harry muttered sympathetic. Merlin, what was worse? Seeing your mother die in an explosion or watching your own baby brother die?

"I was supposed to look after him," Luna added distractedly, as she traced some lines on her paper with her finger. Harry felt the blood leave his face. He opened his mouth and then closed it again, not knowing what to say. Perhaps this really was worse.

"Oh, that is horrible," he finally said compassionate. This made her look up.

"Why?" She asked curious, which made Harry only confused.

"What do you mean?"

"You said that, as if that fact made the situation even worse. Are you under the impression that I am suffering from guilt over the fact that my brother died under my watch?"

Harry opened and closed his mouth again as a goldfish.

"For I am not. I did at first, but my parents were adamant about me not blaming myself. I was only a child and I was too far away from him to have helped. There was nothing I could have done."

"I see. They were right, you know," Harry said.

Luna smiled. "I know. Hough it's usually easier to say this to others than when it is about yourself."

They were silent after this, with Harry not knowing what to add to that and focussed their attention back on their homework. Harry was absent-mindedly staring in Luna's direction, while wondering if he could sneak out to fly with Jacob that evening, when she closed her book and asked the most unexpected question.

"Harry, are you in love with me?" Luna inquired, as if she was only asking what weather it would be that day.

Harry blinked furiously and felt the blood rush to his face. "Wha-what? Why are you asking me this?" He demanded to know.

Luna stared at his face for a moment and then gave a small nod as she seemed to reach a conclusion. "I thought as such. I was just wondering since people seem to mention than when you stand up for me. And I was wondering why you actually do that, while you do not think of me that way."

"Do what?"

"Protect me from bullies. You don't do that for others."

"Like who?"

"There are a lot of students in school who are being bullied, most even worse than me, so why are you only helping me?"

Harry laughed uncomfortable. "Would you believe me if I said it is because I know you from an alternate dimension?" he said jokingly.

Luna's stare stayed blank. "I would," she answered and smiled again. "Were we close in that dimension?"

Harry was unsure if she was simply humouring him or actually believed him. "Not really, I hadn't known you for that long." he answered honestly.

"That's a pity. Well, you get to know me closer now."

He smiled, she was amusing. "I suppose you're right."

"By the way," Luna suddenly said. "I quite often notice Draco Malfoy from Slytherin glaring at me. Usually when you are with me."

Harry frowned confused. "Really? Do you know why?"

"I am quite baffled. He never bothered with me before, so I wonder what makes him pay attention now." She glanced sideways at Harry, who was still frowning thoughtfully. "Maybe he wants something from me," she added.

"If you want to, I can talk with him. See what he is up to," he offered.

Luna waved vaguely with a hand and then smiled a knowingly. "Oh no, I don't think that will be necessary."

To Be Continued

VGJekyll: Readers, I love you. Just felt like telling you. And I know there are probably some obvious mistakes in this chapter, but... yeah, no good excuse for that. I'm doing this maybe to half-heartedly. It's sometimes really difficult to get the motivation to write on this one. I miss Juu.

[I Wish, I Wish – Cat Stevens)