"Low rider don't use no gas now, low rider don't drive too fast" -Low Rider, War

-This is a line break.-

Harry woke in a cold sweat. It wasn't the cracks of thunder that woke him from his slumber, nor was it the pounding rain at his windows. It was the sheer sense of existential dread that had woken The Boy Who Lived. He was trapped, trapped within the meaty confines of his mortal being. But by whom? He didn't know.

Was it by his mother, the life who brought him into the world? Was it by his father, from which he was shat into his mother's loins? Or was it by some all powerful and terrible God who had doomed him to a life of misery and torment? Harry supposed he would never know. His restless mind danced in slow, methodic circles, retreading the ground it had walked all night.

What is my purpose? Harry wondered, Why? How? What is any of this?

No relief would come to him on this night. Harry listened to the constant pounding of rain. He let its sweet melody drown out the nagging thoughts in his head. The flickers of flame that threatened to erupt into a raging fire of awareness if he fed just them. The truth of his life. Mortality, humanity, the infinite space between stars. It scared him, and so he drowned it all out.

Hours later, Harry's mind began to wander once more, and he remembered something, the faintest tug of a memory. A story his uncle had once told him.

A man named Ivan, who lived in London, was once told that death would come for him that day. He initially thought that this was pure speculation, but then he saw a hooded figure standing outside of his house. So Ivan fled all the way to Liverpool. It took him all day, but when he arrived he saw once more the hooded figure. Death began to speak but he was cut off by Ivan blasting open Death's head with his twelve gauge shotgun. The moral of the story? You cannot outrun death, but you sure as fuck can shoot that fucking pansy in the face.

Harry's uncle was killed in a shootout with the police nine hours later.

Harry stood. He would get no respite from his panicked brain tonight. He ran his hands through his long, dark hair and walked into the Gryffindor common room. Nobody else was awake. This was good. Nobody would see him perform the Black Sacrament.

"Sweet mother, sweet mother, send your child unto me" Harry began to chant, his eyes glowing with red energy, "For the sins of the unworthy must be baptized in blood and fear."

The air grew still. The wind and rain and thunder all ceased. Everything was touched by a sudden chill and Harry could feel the cold grip of insanity spread through his body. His blood felt like it was freezing in his veins, his heart slowed to a crawl and his head pounded in pain. Everything was consumed by a blinding light, and when it faded Harry was left in The Void. A plain of infinite all-consuming darkness. It was here that Harry felt most at home.

A faint, ethereal voice wafted up from beneath the solid obsidian floor. It echoed off invisible walls and bounced from left to right in Harry's muddled brain.

"Harken, my child. Listen and obey the orders of the dead." The voice whispered, faintly at first. It tugged at the back of Harry's brain. A sense of foreboding. A primal fear buried so deep within him that Harry couldn't grasp its meaning, only its presence.

Around him stars exploded into being, filling the empty void with light and warmth and noise. Infinite galaxies stretched out before him, nebulas swirled around his fingertips, and whole universes seemed to hang in existence before him. After what seemed to be an eternity, the cosmos parted revealing a man.

It was Harry's uncle Vernon in all is glory. A squat, balding man stood before him. Angry in nature and rotund in figure, he reminded Harry of an enraged obese hedgehog. His face was twisted and contorted, though Harry could perceive no ailment troubling the man. Vernon's eyes darted back and forth. His nostrils flared. His entire body was rigid.

And then he spoke.

"Harry. I bring unto you a message from beyond the Doors of Death." Vernon said, his voice low and hollow. It seemed to echo from everywhere, yet nowhere. A paradoxical anomaly that by all accounts, should never have been able to occur. But from all his years at Hogwarts, Harry had learned that impossibility was subjective.

"Uncle Vernon." Harry said curtly. He made a distinct effort to prevent anger from seeping into his voice. "And here I was thinking you were gone for good."

"Harry." Vernon chuckled, his voice filled with malice and spite. "You should have known you'd never escape me. Not after what you did. However, tonight is not the night for revenge. Tonight I come before you not as your Uncle Vernon, but as the newly elected Ghost of Christmas past. I've been assigned to make you aware of a prophecy countless centuries old. The words of the great Albus Dumbledore in fact."

Harry narrowed his eyes. Dumbledore was a madman, so he'd been told at the very least. He had been known to drink the blood of children and smoke the root of the Kryunserrikl tree. He said they gave him prophetic visions of doomed futures and desolated civilizations. But if the legends were indeed true, than anything Albus said in his blood visions would come to fruition.

"Well fucking get on with it. I don't have all night." Harry snapped.

"You and I both know you have nothing better to be doing." Vernon responded smugly. "Very well. I'll relay onto you what information I'm allowed to and be on my way."

Vernon paused and cleared his throat. When he spoke, the ground shook under Harry's feet and the swirling cosmos around them vanished.

"Harken, Harry Potter. Your day of judgment draws near. Indeed the fate of the entire world depends upon you. Seek the Spas-12 of Justice in order to vanquish evil and to save yourself from a fate worse than death." Vernon stopped suddenly. Harry stared at him. A long silence followed and the dark void seemed to close in until...

Harry blinked; and then he awoke.

The rain had subsided.