Harry had decided that his life was an utter mess.

Which shouldn't have been a new revelation. His life had thus far sucked. But perhaps this took the cake. He had woken up, understandably shocked, because, you know, he had been freaking out next to a grave seconds earlier. And then he looked to the side, and saw Ron, two years younger. And then he'd realised that he was in Grimmauld Place, but it was different, because there was still a layer of dust upon everything, and he could hear Sirius' mother screaming somewhere downstairs. And then he looked in the mirror and suddenly, with a jarring shock, he came upon the conclusion that he probably wasn't still in 1998.

And then he heard screaming.

The screaming was him.

Ron jerked awake with a shock, "Harry?" His eyes flicked over to his friend, to Harry's eyes blown wide open, to quick breathing.

"Harry! Are you okay?"

"Well that was a stupid question," Harry bit out, "You think I just woke up screaming for no reason?"

Ron went silent.

Perhaps if the situation had been normal, Harry would have said sorry. The situation wasn't normal. Instead, he rushed to the toilet and stared at his face, not too far from 17, but far enough that the differences were clear. Had the past two years been a dream? No. People had long dreams, but nobody remembered a dream that long with the burning clarity Harry had. Nobody had a dream THAT long in the first place.

And what was he supposed to DO. Because he didn't want to lose everyone again. Didn't want to lose the people that he'd loved, and yet what else was he to do? The war had ended, in the time two years in the future. It hadn't been perfect, but the war had been over.

Once again, Harry was burnt with the shock that everything he had done was gone. The Horcruxes destroyed were still alive. HE was still a horcrux. But then he stopped. He could see the magic, the dark blues and purples of Grimmauld Place. Was the Horcrux still there? It didn't matter. Reliving the worst two years of his life was not going to be an… enjoyable experience.

But Sirius was alive, Remus was alive, everyone was still alive. That made it better, in a way. He could still save them, if he was careful. If he planned it all out and made sure he didn't break the world along the way. Breaking the world. Hermione had said something about breaking the world when she used the time turner, but when she used the time turner, everything she did had happened already. She had told enough stories of trying to avoid her future self in the hallway to make that clear. But this wasn't the same.

Harry left the toilet. If he was in 1996, he might as well embrace being in 1996. That meant leaving the toilet before someone screamed at him that he was spending too long staring at the mirror. He slipped out to find Hermione and Ron staring at him.

"What?!"

"Harry," Hermione said softly, "Ron told me that you had a nightmare…"

Harry face planted. Great. They had banded together to attempt to give him therapy, at an unknown point in the night, with a screaming painting in the background. Lovely. And he couldn't exactly tell them, "Well Hermione, I had a two-year dream where half the people I loved died, and I found out that part of Voldemort's soul was stuck in me." That would go well. So, he just said, "I'd rather not talk about it."

He hurried out the door, and called to them, "We're making cookies!"

Ron looked confused, "We?"

"Yes we, you're coming."

"At 4am?" Hermione squinted at him.

Harry just rolled his eyes, "I want cookies, you're coming. You seem unnecessarily confused."

He didn't pay attention to her response, and just went downstairs. After a moment of silence, his friends followed. Some might question why Harry was making cookies 5 minutes after waking up in the past. This was perhaps a valid question. But that wasn't exactly on Harry's mind right now, what was normal or not. Because if he didn't do something, he would break.

So, he pulled his friends along, with their bright eyes, and not yet scarred beliefs and dreams, he pulled out ingredients and bowls, and threw flour at Ron and settled in this relative safety.

He watched as Ron, 15 and still not sure where he fit, grabbed cookie dough and shoved it in his mouth.

He watched as Hermione, caught between her beliefs and those of authority figures, screamed, "Honestly Ronald, you can't just eat the cookie dough!"

And Ron just smiled, that open and wide smile that Harry hadn't seen in so long, and he just said, "Harry doesn't mind, do you?"

Harry didn't answer, so caught up in the joy, that he had stopped hearing the words.

"Harry!" Ron called.

Harry blinked, then his brain caught up, "I think Mione might be the only person in the world who cares about whether or not you eat cookie dough."

Hermione just rolled her eyes, "You're being ridiculous, plenty of people say you shouldn't eat raw egg, or flour."

Harry, like the mature 17-year-old he was, stuck out his tongue, "People OUR age."

He supposed that he wasn't the same age as his best friends anymore, but they were close enough that Harry didn't think opinions on the consumption of cookie dough would change so much.

The kitchen door opened and Harry spun around to see a gaunt man standing there, black hair falling in waves and he looked at his dead godfather and ran to him. He buried his head into Sirius's chest, and everything was okay now. Because Sirius wasn't perfect but it didn't matter, because he was alive. He was alive, alive, alive.

Sirius looked down at the small boy tucked under his chin and looked at the other two children, a question clear in his eyes.

"Nightmare," Hermione whispered.

Sirius nodded. And then squeezed Harry. What was maybe seconds and maybe hours later, Harry pulled away.

"I have cookies to put in the oven."

Hermione stopped for a moment, "Harry, you forgot to pre-heat the oven."

For a moment, Harry looked at her blankly, before he realised, this was before they were locked in this house for months, before Hermione had seen more of the Wizarding World than a main street and a school. It didn't matter how many books she read, until she started living in this world, there would be gaps in her knowledge.

"You don't need to, you just set the number," he reached over, and twisted the knob, "and then put in some magic." He pulled out his wand to shoot magic through the heater and realised with a shock, that it wasn't the Phoenix wand in his hand, it was a wand with little knobs, with death surrounding it, the elder wand, back from the future.