A soft tap sounded through the air.
It drew Holly Potter out of the uneasy haze of sleep she had tried to smother herself with. Her body too tired to do anything more but the nightmares always kept a fulfilling sleep just out of her grasp. She shifted in her bed as the sound of fabric filled the air, rolling over onto her other side in the hopes that a dreamless sleep would take her, and came face to face with a solid green eye staring back at her.
"Gah-"
A rough hand slapped itself over her mouth, cutting off her scream, and filling her nose with the scent of silk. The man with the one green eye had his wand pointed at her, right between her eyes, and Holly found that she couldn't move. She didn't know if it was fear that held her in place or a silently casted spell. All she could think of was the tip of the man's wand pointing right at her face.
This is how I die, a small part of her mind not recognizing the gravity of the situation lamented, in the middle of the night half naked and soaked with sweat.
But the next words that came out of the man's mouth weren't the Killing Curse. He didn't say anything at all. The wand made movements through the air, casting some sort of magic that didn't require an incantation, and Holly felt the magic prickle against her slick skin. Goosebumps tickled up her arms and she inhaled sharply when the wand was again pointed at her, the man's hand growing damp with her breath.
She didn't move a muscle as the man stared at her. That single green eye was so bright it nearly glowed in the darkness of her bedroom. Only a sliver of moonlight spilled in from the closed window blinds. It only just revealed the scarred left side of his face to her. Deep grooves cut into his flesh around the eyepatch covering other eye. Beside herself she could only wonder, absurdly given the situation, was what happened to his other eye?
Then the man moved his wand away from her face. It was still pointed at her. But not close enough that it was about to poke her in the eye.
"I'm going to remove my hand." The man's voice was gravely, like he had the flu, or that he chained smoked cigarettes. "When I do, refrains from shouting, no one will hear it anyway. I will explain everything, but I can't do so if you try to do anything stupid. Trust me."
Fat chance of that. No sooner had the hand removed itself from her face did she speak, mouth running ahead of her mind. "How did you get in here you fucke-"
"Magic, you dwarf." The man snapped at her.
"Now listen here, one eye!" Holly didn't know where her fury had come from. She'd always been the shortest person in her year, and it had never bothered her before, not even with the occasional teasing that she got from her friends about it. But coming from this stranger? He had no right to make fun of her height! Her Gryffindor courage muscles its way out from behind her tired mind and into the forefront. "I'm not a dwarf-"
The man stood, because apparently, he had been kneeling beside her bed to get eye level with her, and he soon towered over her. Holly shifted back in her bed, trying to put as much distance as she could between them, but her back it the wall and the wand pointed at her was still all too close. She could barely make out his face in the darkness.
"I'm not here to hurt you." The man said whilst pointing his wand at her. A snarky retort was at the tip of her tongue but Holly bit it to stop from saying anything stupid. "If I was here to hurt then you'd already be dead."
"Not exactly convincing me otherwise." Merlin help me why do I always say something stupid at the worst possible moment?
But the man didn't lash out at her. His lips twitched upward, like smiling was an unfamiliar expression to him. Then the chuckle leapt from his mouth and soon enough he was holding his side as he laughed. There were tears leaking out his one good eye and Holly slowly fumbled at her nightstand where she kept her wand. It wasn't where she had left it.
"Oh fuck," the stranger chuckled to himself as he slid to the grown, his back resting against the wall opposite her bed, knees pulled hallway to his chest. "I… sorry. I don't know where that came from. Bloody hell. I…"
Holly looked at the one-eyed man warily and watched as realization slapped itself into his expression. Then she watched as he slapped himself over his eyepatch. The man pointed his wand at the light switch and flicked it on. The room was filled with light and Holly got her first good look at the man who had invaded her home.
His face was all cut up with scars. The left eye covered by an eyepatch while the right one stared back at her with its bright green coloring. His hair was short and messy. He had dark robes on over what looked like armor. It kind of reminded her of the paranoid Alastor Moody. Though Mad-Eye Moody didn't break into people's homes, at least she didn't think he did.
"Who are you and how did you get in here?" Holly demanded as she got out of her bed. The man didn't move from where he sat as she grabbed the nearest shirt and threw it on. It was all too hot for her liking.
"This is going to sound ridiculous, but I'm sure you're accustomed to that already." The man then wiped his brow. Holly didn't see where her wand was in the quick glance around her room and decided to simply stand with her hands on her hips. Trying to look at intimidating as possible.
The silence that stretched between them didn't help.
"What's going to sound ridiculous?" She asked when the man didn't say anything more.
"Are you-" The man balked at her and then wiped at his brow again. He looked at her with his one good eye and she looked right back. She didn't see what he was alluding to. Was he just as hot as she was? He didn't look like he was sweating.
"What are you going on about?" Holly pulled an errant strand of black hair away from her face and tucked it behind an ear. "You break into my home, threaten me, and now you're sitting here speaking nonsense."
"What-" The man stood and wiped at his forehead again. Holly looked him over and saw that he was rather tall, nearly a foot taller than she was, but that didn't make what he was saying any clearer. She simply gave him a frown and folded her arms across her chest.
"Look, I don't know who you are or what you're doing here. It's the middle of the night and I need, really need, to get some actual sleep. So, if you aren't going to explain anything about yourself to me can this just wait until tomorrow morning?"
"Just look at my fucking forehead, will ya?" The man snapped and Holly simply did as she was told on the off chance that it would lead to her getting some sleep soon. Her eyes found his forehead and looked at it.
"What am I supposed to be looking at? You have a scarred forehead, big deal."
"Don't you recognize one of them?"
Holly nearly rolled her eyes at the man as she gave his forehead a second glance. Most of the scars across it were like little cuts and slashes. Indistinguishable marks that could have been hidden with some simple makeup or even a soft Glamor Charm. She was about to tell the man off again when a particularly shaped scar caught her eye. It almost looked like a…
"Why do you have my scar on your forehead?" She demanded. For better or worse it was her scar. The damn thing was hers and hers alone. No one else had any claim to it. "What kind of sick twisted game-"
"This isn't a game." The man cut her off. "I have this scar because I got it the same way you did."
"Now I know you're lying." Holly's voice shook as her hands balled into fists. "I'm the Girl-Who-Lived. I am! Not anyone else! I am the one was kidnapped at the end of the Third Task and brought to a graveyard! I am the one who had to watch Cedric die-"
"-and then Voldemort used you as part of a ritual to bring form himself a new body." The words felt like a slap across the face. Holly felt something twist in her chest as she listened to him. Anger. "Bone of the father, flesh of the servant, and blood of the enemy? Yeah, I know all about it. Because I lived it."
"You…" Holly clenched her fists so tight that they went white and shook. "You…" A rage boiled in her that came from her stomach and rose to her head. The memories of her nightmares, of Cedric's dead body staring back at her, they all flashed through her mind. It consumed her until all other thoughts left her. "You fucking Death Eater!"
She launched herself at him, intent on scratching out his one good eye, but didn't get more than two steps towards him before she bounced off a blue shield. It was gone as soon as it had appeared and the man was on her a moment later, his dark robes thrown to the side, his sleave pushed up to his elbow. All Holly saw was the image of her nails ripping apart his throat and moved to make it a reality.
Her clawing got results as the arm he used to hold her back ran red. Holly reached for his neck but soon found herself pinned down on the floor. It didn't stop her from snarling at him as she jerked her knee up. He cursed as she hit his balls and Holly slipped out of his loosened grip and swiped at his neck.
Only to be met by the red glow of a Stunning Spell.
Holly went flying through the air, slammed into the wall with a crack, and cried out as she crumpled down onto her bed. A blinding pain shot through her and ended in a throb right behind her eyes. Flashes of anger sputtered out and made her legs twitch. When they subsided, she couldn't do more than hold her forehead as her lightning bolt scar burned hot to her touch. It felt wet.
"God dammit." She vaguely heard over the pounding of her own ears. "So much for trying it the Hermione way."
She groaned in pain as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block it all out with sheer force of will. When the hand came down on her shoulder, she didn't have the strength to fight it, nor did she do anything more than let the man push her onto her back. The light of the room burned her eyes even when they were closed, and she covered them with her arm.
Then something cool touched her lips and a sweet tasting liquid filled her mouth.
"Drink it," the voice was much softer than before, "it'll help with the headache."
Whatever it was tasted too sweet to simply spit out. Holly swallowed and found that once she did, she couldn't get enough of the stuff. Her free hand came up and grasped the man's arm to keep the bottle on her lips. She drank it greedily, relishing in the way that it made the pain, the heat, made it all go away. The headaches and the tiredness all seeped out of her the more she drank.
Then the drink dried up.
Holly hated herself for how pitiful she whined at the loss. The man's chuckle filled her ears and she scowled as she turned to rest on her side. The room's lights were still too bright. Then they were suddenly switched off and she could open her eyes without being blinded.
"Special brew of mine for healing wounds and shoring up the body's constitution. Your back will probably still feel a little sore, all my fault. I may have overpowered the Stunner a little. But in my defense, you came at me like a wild Hippogriff."
Holly managed to push herself up into a sitting position and sent the stranger her best glare. "Or you could have just not broken into my house and none of this would have happened."
"Heh, well, Gryffindors charge blindly in."
Hearing that put her more at ease than she thought possible. Holly touched her lightning bolt scar again, feeling her fingers come away slick with blood, but there was no pain to it. Ever since the graveyard it had been constantly annoying her, pulsing, and throbbing with pain at odd hours. Bleeding when it got particularly intense. Just like right before she had the potion.
"Who are you really?" Holly asked, searching for something to wipe her hand with. The man wordlessly conjured a rag for her. "I just need a name, if for nothing else than to thank you for stopping the headaches."
"My name is Harry Potter," Harry held up his hand to stop Holly from speaking. "I know how that sounds, believe me, but just look at this." He pointed at his left forearm, and right in the middle of it, was a familiar looking scar. It was a near exact replica of the one Holly had on her own forearm. That should have been impossible. Unless… "This isn't a Glamor either. Its real and it hurt like a bitch until Fawkes came and cried on me."
"B-But that's impossible. I-I'm… there are no Potters left. Just me."
"And you'd be right. Being the only Potter that is, on the possibility of the fact that I'm standing in front of you right here right now?" Harry spread his arms to either side of him, wand balancing precariously between the fingers of his right hand, empty vial in the other. "Well, you'd be wrong. I am you. Not in a literal sense, but in all the ways it counts, we are the same."
Holly didn't know what to say. All she could do was look at the man standing before her and see the similarities between them. He had the same scar on his forehead, exactly where it was on her own. He had the same color eyes as her, even if he only had the right eye. He had the same Basilisk scar on his forearm, which no one else should have, and even less people knew of in the first place. He even had the same messy hair that Lavender always lamented about, even if it was shorter on him than it was for her.
But he didn't have his glasses.
Nor was she wearing her own.
Holly squinted at him in the darkness of her room and then looked towards her nightstand. She grabbed them and when she placed them onto her face, her world was blurry instead of clear, and she looked at the man questioningly as she took them off. Harry simply shook the little vial in his hand.
"Temporarily heals the body, eyes included." He looked almost sheepish. "You'll have about half an hour of perfect vision before it returns to a blurry mess."
"Okay, but back to you being a Potter." Holly returned her glasses to her nightstand as Harry conjured himself a little stool to sit on. "How?"
"Well, my dad and my mum eventually got to really liking one-"
"I didn't mean it like that." Holly fixed him a stern glare of disappointment that she'd seen Professor McGonagall do a hundred times over. "How are you here, right now? How do you have all the scars that I do? Almost no one knows about the Basilisk or the scar it gave me."
"The reason I have all the scars is because I lived through all the same events as you did." Harry leaned his elbows on his knees and sighed. "To explain how I am here right now is far too complicated and involves so much more understanding of magic than you have right now. In the shortest possible summary, I performed a hail mail ritual with the use of the Deathly Hallows and dimension traveled, which brought me from my own dimension here to your dimension. When I say that I am you, I mean it literally. I was you in my own dimension. The Boy-Who-Lived."
"The Boy-Who-Lived." She looked him over. "Not very boyish."
"That's all you have to say?" When she merely shrugged, he balked. "Me being here is such an impossibility that it's never been done before. I'm literally and older version of you! How are you not freaking out right now? How is the fact that I'm not a teenager anymore the only thing you have to say?"
"Well, you're not exactly the most surprising thing that's happened to me recently." Holly pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. "Voldemort came back and killed Cedric. No one believed me when I told them about it at the tournament. Lavender and Parvati, who've always written to me over the summer no matter what, just suddenly stop. My headaches became so much worse over the summer until I couldn't sleep properly, and the scar would start to bleed like it was freshly cut. I'm sorry but… you're just the latest in a string of surprises, that it's not really surprising anymore."
She trailed off at the end and rubbed away the tear that spilled from the corner of her eye. Harry looked at her with a sad smile that didn't at all fit his face. So different to the scary looking stranger who had woken her up in the middle of the night. The moonlight coming from the thin crack of the blinds casted him in a pale glow.
He didn't say anything for a moment and just looked at her. Holly couldn't handle the sadness she saw in that single green eye and looked at his wand instead. It had odd little round nodules on it. Then Harry stood from his stool, walked over to the window, and closed the blinds completely. He conjured up some light from the tip of his wand, then used one of her nightstand's drawers to prop the entire thing up with the glowing tip pointing into the air, and finally sat back down on his little stool.
It was such an absurd use of a wand that she couldn't help but giggle at the sight.
"So, your best friends Lavender and Parvati not sending you letters?" Harry offered Holly a soft smile when she nodded. "I'm almost positive that they haven't abandoned you. Same thing happened to me when I told everyone that Voldemort had returned. Summer before fifth year was very boring until it wasn't."
"What happened?"
"The Order of the Phoenix happened."
Holly's confusion must have shown on her face, and Harry opened his mouth to presumably explain it to her, but he stopped himself and pursed his lips in thought. It was an expression that made him look a lot younger in the face, the scars and eyepatch fading into the background somewhat.
"It's a vigilante organization founded by Dumbledore, located in…" Harry tripped up over his words again and frowned. "Heh, I guess I don't know the location of the Order Headquarters, which would mean that the Fidelius Charm works even on dimension travelers. But getting back on topic, your friends are most likely not sending you any mail because Dumbledore told them not to."
"But why?" Holly hugged her knees closer to her chest. She had never felt so alone than after the tournament ended and summer holiday started. She hadn't been able to go to Cedric's funeral. Lavender and Parvati's promised letters never arrived. Professor Dumbledore… "Why would he…"
"He told them not to because the threat of any letters and the potentially sensitive information they could have had getting intercepted by Death Eaters or the Ministry is too great of a risk to take. The former all want to kill you, especially Voldemort. The latter simply doesn't believe, or is in denial of, the fact that Voldemort is truly alive again. Dumbledore mainly wants to protect you, Holly. He did much the same to me in my own dimension."
"So, they're just following Dumbledore's orders?"
"Most likely," Harry nodded, "though I can't say if they've joined the Order or not. For me at least, it was Hermione and Ron by my side, not sending letters to me the summer before fifth year. I take it that you aren't close friends with them."
"No, I'm not." Holly made a face at the very thought. The idea of not having Lavender or Parvati with her didn't make any sense. Harry seemed shocked at her choice of friends if his face was anything to go by. "Hermione Granger isn't even a Gryffindor and I'm only kind of friends with Ron. Were they the ones who helped you with the Philosopher's Stone, the Chamber of Secrets, Sirius breaking out of Azkaban, and the Triwizard Tournament?"
"They were," Harry said softly, "and all of that did happen in that order. It seems that our dimensions aren't all that different, barring the obvious. But enough about all of that. We need to address the most important thing in this room before we can continue, and soon, because that potion isn't going to last that much longer."
Holly's hand instinctually went to her forehead, fingers brushing up against the dried blood from her lightning bolt scar, and Harry's face held a grim seriousness. "You know why its bleeding," she realized, her words sounding more like an accusation than she had wanted it to. Her older counterpart didn't seem to mind.
Harry simply gave her a solemn nod.
"The nightmares you've been having are because of Voldemort," he explained, rubbing the palm of his hand with his thumb. "The imagery that you see in them. Seem a little too vivid for a dream, right? That's because they aren't simply things your subconscious has thought up. He's using that bond you two share to make you have nightmares of his own design. Its probably why you can't get a good night's sleep ever since the graveyard incident."
Holly felt like she was going to be sick. A bond with Voldemort? Nothing sounded so horrible as that. Yet she couldn't deny that sleep had eluded her ever since that fateful day. She was always tired and no matter what she did she couldn't get any meaningful rest.
"You're probably quicker to anger as well." Harry continued, glancing at her with his one eye. Holly simply bit her lip as she remembered her intense desire to claw out his throat. It had felt so natural. "That's also part of Voldemort's doing. You can feel some of the emotions he feels, and he can feel some of what you are feeling. Simply put, for whatever reason, he's so angry that he's making you angry."
"You can make it stop though, right?" Holly gestured at his own forehead where the scar was so faded it was almost nonexistent. So very unlike her own scar which was usually red and inflamed. Like it was freshly cut. "Y-You have to know how to if you're here, in my dimension."
"I do know of ways to remove it, though I would rather not use most of them on you." He reached over to the nightstand where his wand was jammed in between the drawers, emitting a soft glow that filled the room, and took it in his hand. He held if aloft and Holly watched as a small sphere of light floated off the tip, rising in the air until it hovered just under the ceiling. "Even the method I intend to use will most likely be very painful."
"I can handle pain." Holly shifted to the edge of her bed and planted her feet on the ground. Her back was straight, and her fists balled up her bedsheet. "I killed a Basilisk in my second year. I out flew a dragon in my fourth. I even dueled Voldemort and lived. I'll be able to handle whatever you have to do."
Harry quirked the eyebrow half hidden by his eyepatch. "Potters are built tough, yeah?"
That got a snort out of her. Harry looked like he had been through a metaphorical and physical wringer with all the scars across his face and the missing eye. Yet he seemed no less chipper. Not at all afraid of Voldemort. Certainly mad enough to dimension travel too.
When the tip of his wand touched her scar, she hissed at the pain, and by the look on Harry's face it was only going to get worse before it got better. The temperature of the room got steadily colder as Harry focused directly on her forehead. Holly couldn't do much else but look into his one green eye as the pain from her scar got more and more intense. Every muscle in her body was tensed up. Her ears were pounding, and she hadn't even realized how loud it was until she saw his mouth move without hearing what he said. She felt his hand grab her own, squeezing tight, just as his wand jerked to the right-
Holly screamed.
It felt as if her forehead was being splint in two. The pain exploded through her like a gunshot. It felt even worse than the Cruciatus Curse she had been subjected to by Voldemort himself. The shock of the pain turned into a writhing burning that went on for an eternity. Her hand squeezed Harry's until it felt like her wrist was going to snap from the pressure. She couldn't even hear her own screams over the thundering in her ears. Her vision was blurry from the tears spilling from her eyes.
Then all at once it was over.
She lost all control of her upper body and slipped from the bed. Her bedroom floor felt soft and wet and cold as she collapsed onto it, her ears ringing a high-pitched ring, her vision so blurry she could only make out the vague shape of Harry in front of her. She blinked away the tears from her eyes and took in the sight before her, nearly as shocked at the newfound state of her room as to the undulating black mass that Harry was contending with, the sheer effort causing his arms to shake.
Her ears stopped ringing enough to hear the hissing and screaming filling the air, but it wasn't coming from Harry or even herself. It was coming from the black mass. The thing was constantly changing forms, shapes, and for a moment she thought she saw a face stretch the outside layer.
Holly quickly marshaled whatever strength she had and pushed herself as far away from it as possible. The fine layer of ice-cold snow that currently covered every surface of her bedroom bit at her skin as she scooted away. When her back thumped against her nightstand she felt the cool touch of icicles brush up against her shoulders. All the while Harry fought a battle against whatever it was that he had taken out of her forehead.
The black mass screamed out as Harry muttered incantations under his breath. All Holly could hear was hissing and then all she saw was a bright flash and the chair by her desk launch itself across the room. It slammed against her bedroom door and landed on the ground undamaged.
Harry all but collapsed against her snow-covered bed.
"I-I-Is it done?" Holly could see her own breath in front of her face. She touched her forehead and felt dried blood on her skin, but no pain, not even when she rubbed at it.
"Not yet." Harry heaved out as he pushed himself to his feet. He looked a lot paler than he had before he started. His wand had never strayed away from the chair. "The Horcrux still needs to be destroyed."
"Horcrux?"
"The thing I just pulled out of your forehead," Harry pointed at the chair with his wand, "and placed into the chair over there."
Holly blanched at the very thought of that black mass being inside of her head. She touched at her lightning bolt scar again and felt the dried blood across her forehead. Has it been there this entire time? She didn't even feel the coldness against her skin as she scrambled to her feet and onto her bed, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the Horcrux.
"Destroy it!" She yelled.
"I'm going to." Harry looked over his shoulder at her. "But there's only two ways to do it with a wand, with one most likely to burn down the Dursley's home with us still in it, and the other not for the faint of heart."
"I don't care if you have to do some esoteric blood ritual or some other bullshit! Just destroy it!"
"Right then." Harry turned back towards the Horcrux, and Holly watched as his entire body tensed. She faintly noticed the way the room got much colder again, at how every surface of her room got denser with snow, or how Harry himself was unaffected by it.
The spell he yelled made her flinch.
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
A blinding bolt of green burst from Harry's wand and slammed into the chair. The wooden chair shattered into a thousand pieces as the air filled with a high-pitched scream. It pierced through the air and ripped around the room until it faded into nothingness. Holly removed her hands from her ears and peered at the remains of the chair strewn across the snow-covered floor. All of the little bits were as black as coal and not at all the white that the chair had originally been.
But that hardly mattered in the end.
The Horcrux was gone.
The silence that filled the room stretched between them for some time. Neither of them moved from where they stood, Holly standing huddled in the corner of her bed, and Harry in the middle of her room with his back facing her and his wand pointed at where the chair used to be. The stillness and the silence were almost tranquil under the soft glow of the little sphere of light in the air. Her room looked like the morning after a rather intense snowstorm that had ravaged its way through, her chair the only casualty.
Without a word, Harry turned to face her, and took something out from a pocket in his trousers. He chucked it to her underhanded and it was only instinct that Holly caught it. My wand. She ran a hand over the eleven inches of wood that bore her name before looking up. Her counterpart from an alternate dimension simply shrugged and said, "I had to take it incase you did something stupid. Now that we're relatively acquainted you can have it back."
Holly snorted at that. "Thanks for the vote of confidence."
"Hey, knowing if I was in your situation? I'd have probably done something incredibly stupid."
"So, now what?" Holly toyed with her own wand as she got off her bed. The snow was cold under her feet. Her room was a right mess and Aunt Petunia would no doubt scream at her for making such a mess. She didn't know what to do with her hands.
"Now?" Harry gestured around her room. "I'll clean up this mess, then you get your first full night's rest without having to deal with a Horcrux, and I will Apparate out of here."
"Wait! You can't leave yet!" Holly grabbed at the rough material of Harry shirt even as an irrational fear gripped at her thoughts. All common sense seemed to have vanished at the prospect of losing someone who knew all the things she had to deal with. The pressure and the pain and the fear. It all seeped into her.
"Hey," Harry wrapped an arm around her shoulders and looked down at her. The soft smile on his face made him look so much younger, almost revealing the handsome face behind the scars. "I'm not going anywhere, not like that anyway. But you do need to sleep… uh, oh Merlin, this is awkward."
"What is?" Holly looked up at him, then realized that she had unconsciously wrapped her arms around him, as if that would stop a man a foot taller than her from leaving.
Harry cheeks pinked in the soft light. "I don't actually know your name."
"Wait, really?" A laugh burst forth from her throat. It descended into a giggle as she looked up at him. "You broke into my room, revealed that you're a dimension traveling Potter, and removed whatever a Horcrux is from my forehead, all without knowing my name?"
"When you put it like that it sounds ridiculous. But in my defense! I was running on an adrenaline high from the whole dimension traveling thing and my first coherent thought was to get to you and remove the Horcrux from your forehead. Things like names didn't seem that important at the time."
"It's Holly." She let go of him and took a step back. With all the dramatics that Lavender and Parvati had trained her with she struck a hero pose. The bemused look on Harry's face was enough to make all those nights of practicing in the girl's dorm worth it. "Holly James Potter. The Girl-Who-Lived. Vanquisher of Voldemort. Though that last bit's kinda redundant now."
"It's very nice to meet you, Holly. The name's Harry Potter." Harry offered her a hand. If only for the gesture of a formal greeting, Holly shook it, and matched Harry's own grin. "Now back to what we were original topic of discussion. You need some sleep, actual fulfilling sleep, and I have some things to check on in this dimension before the real work begins."
"But-"
"Holly," Harry took her by the shoulders as he knelt down in front of her, their eyes level with one another. "Trust me on this, okay? I'll be back here tomorrow, I promise. We Potters stick together, yeah? I'll be back when you wake up and we'll head on down to Gringotts and get to work."
"Dumbledore said-"
"-to stay here for your own protection." Harry finished her thought aloud. "I know, but who better to protect you than the man who killed his own Voldemort? Don't worry about it right now. That's a problem for tomorrow and right now you need to get some rest."
"What about you?" Holly said as she was led to her bed, doing anything she could to stretch out the conversation. "Don't you need to rest too?"
Harry vanished the snow in and around her bed with a wave of his wand. Then he did so for the rest of her room and the shattered remains of the chair. By the time he was done everything looked like it had at the start, if only a tad damp. "There's no rest for the wicked, Holly. Now get some sleep. I mean it."
She let herself get tucked into bed. The entire act of getting tucked in felt foreign. "I-I'll hunt you down if you're not here tomorrow." It didn't sound very threatening, and she got a soft chuckle for her efforts.
"I'm sure you will," Harry patted her on the shoulder even as he gathered up his discarded robes, "now get some sleep."
Tiredness clung to her all at once. Holly struggled to keep her eyes open as Harry stepped away from her bed, her eyelids feeling like they were made of lead. He Disapparated from her bedroom with a soft tap as she watched. Just like that he was gone. For a moment she just stared at the place where he had been moments ago. Then her eyes grew too heavy, her body felt too tired, and rest of her room darkened as she closed her eyes.
She smiled to herself as she hugged her pillow.
The Cedric Diggory she saw in her dreams wasn't pale and dead, he was all smiles and easy laughter, just like she remembered him to be.