On with it!

The first few hours of the flight went by almost sluggishly, and James had managed to ease his anxiety with a few glasses of scotch. He was now sleeping peacefully between the two most important girls in his life--his wife and his daughter.

Gia stared at her father, sighed, and peered out the window. All she could see was white and blue, blue and white. They were over the ocean now, and she was becoming dreadfully bored.

'Man,' she thought. 'I should've brought a book, or a CD player, or something! I'm bored out of my mind!' She began to let her mind wander, as she often did when she was trying to get to sleep, or when she was supposed to be taking notes in school.

She was jolted viscously out of her reverie...she had been kicked sharply in the leg.

"Dad! Son of a..." She wheeled around to yell at her father for kicking her for no reason, and was met with a strange sight. Her father, still asleep, was thrashing around wildly, flailing his arms and twitching. "Dad!" She said, turning a bright crimson as her father's frantic movements began to attract and annoy other passengers. "Wake up!"

"James?" Lily asked nervously, have only just now noticed her husband's odd behavior. "James, wake up! You're scaring me!"

James, however, did not heed either of them. He was lost in a very disturbing dream.

James couldn't see a thing. He had the oddest sensation, feeling as if his physical body did not weigh him down.

'What's the use of being totally without boundaries if you can't see anything?' He thought. Usually in his dreams, he was restricted to acting through a human body, or at least a body of some kind. He had never been the omnipotent being in his own mind.

Suddenly he was harshly aware of something contrasting the bleakness of his dream. It was a small crouching figure, bathed in a dim green light. It had wild black hair that crowned it's small head regally, if not messily. It was a boy, probably only 5 or 6 years old. He was hugging his knees to his chest and his head was drooped in submission. James felt a sudden urge to reach out and comfort the boy.

"I'm sorry, Uncle Vernon," he whimpered, never looking up. "I didn't mean to step on Aunt Petunia's marigolds. I'll never do it again!"

"Sorry isn't good enough, you little monster!" A disembodied voice bellowed. The boy rose to his feet, his head still bowed, and as he did, he seemed to age a few years. He now looked about 9 or 10. The boy raised his head, and James recognized Lily's brilliant green eyes embedded like jewels in his thin red face. James' vision flew to a jagged scar now visible on the boy's forehead.

"Dudley," the boy said obviously frightened. "Please don't! That's my favorite figurine! It's a Knight of the Round-"He jumped back and looked at his feet as James heard a distance smash of broken porcelain. The boy fought back tears as he aged 5 or 6 more years. He was now 16, James could tell, as he was already into the hell they call puberty, and was starting to overcome the initial awkwardness. But James could sense something had changed about the boy. His eyes were bright, and his face was no longer etched with sadness.

"And so Dudley says," he laughed to someone on his right. "'You wouldn't dare, you freak, or I'll call the police' and I just go all white, I'm sure it was very frightening, and I start mumbling all this gibberish under my breath!" The person on his right laughed heartily, before stopping and allowing him to continue. "Well, he ran so fast, I thought he would break a hole through the door instead of opening it! Oh, I got whooped pretty good by my Uncle for that, but Ron, it was so worth it!"

Suddenly, the boy turned to James, and stared right in his 'eyes'. "Why'd you have to go, Dad?" he asked quietly. "I miss you."

"Harry?!?!" James said, louder than he had intended to, for he wasn't sure if he had a voice at this point. He did, as he heard it bounce off invisible walls.

As if he appeared out of thin air, another person appeared behind the boy. He was thin, tall, and his dull eyes stared out at James from their sunken sockets. "I promised, James," he whispered, his voice seeming to be carried by an invisible wind. "I'm promised that if anything ever happened to you, I'd take care of him." He smiled, and put his hand on the boys' shoulder.

"I promised I'd take care of Harry."

James was literally blown out of his dream by the mention of that name...the name of the one he had lost. In his surprise, he accidentally propelled himself forward, out of his chair, and into the back of the chair in front of him.

"Ouch! Shit, what the hell just happened?" James swore, rubbing his injured head. It took him a few seconds to remember the dream. "Oh, my God..."

"Dad!" Gia fumed. If looks could kill, James would be dead a thousand times over. "You old kook, you're such an embarrassment!" She crossed her arms and turned away, furious.

"James," Lily said quietly, staring at James intently. "What just happened?"

James put his head in his hands and murmured. "Another dream, but this one was totally different. I'll tell you later."

The remainder of the flight passed in silence. James had switched places with Gia, and stared out the window for hours, lost in thought. Gia's anger at her father's embarrassing actions had dissipated into boredom, and Lily occupied her time with an entertainment magazine. She occasionally glanced over at her husband, her face etched with worry.

James' eyes were glazed and bloodshot as he watched the clouds gliding underneath the plane.

'So that's Harry...' he thought. He put his head in his hands, as if trying to hold on the memory of his son.... his son.... Even now, the words sounded weird to him. His beautiful son. He had his fathers' hair and Lily's vivacious eyes...but that scar...something about it struck a chord with James. He remembered the man that had been with Harry, that thin, disheveled man that had the look about him that he had been through hell and back.

'My God,' he thought suddenly. 'What am I doing? I am dragging my family half way across the world, and for what? A dream? A realistic dream, yes, but a dream all the same. I must be going insane.'

He shook his head, trying to rid himself of this thought. 'Well, there's nothing I can do about it now, I just have to try.'

James and Gia switched spots once again, and James outlined his vivid dream for Lily. Her eyes widened in a mixture of surprise, anxiousness, and sorrow.

"James, what are we going to do? Where do we start looking?" She exclaimed softly.

"I don't know," he sighed. "I guess we start from the beginning."

"I swear, boy, one more trick like that, and it'll be the beginning of the end for you!" Vernon Dursley shouted, his large face blushing fiercely and flawlessly resembling a tomato.

"Yes, Uncle." Harry said dutifully, knowing it was very much the truth. Hedwig had inexplicably freed herself from her cage, and had almost done away with the neighbor's Chihuahua.

"But, Uncle..." Harry said cautiously as his uncle turned into the hall. "You really can't blame me for that. She was hungry! I can't keep her locked up all summer, she'll die!"

Vernon stopped in his tracks and whirled around, looking strangely calm and thoughtful. "She'd.... Die.... What an idea..." His wide face split into a malevolent grin as he stared at Harry.

"U-uncle Vernon?" Harry whispered as Vernon began to stalk towards the bed, where Harry was sitting with his empty cage. He knew what was coming. Either the switch, which Dudley would fetch from the large poplar in the back yard, the belt, or the yardstick. He was used to it.

It had been worse this summer. The stress of keeping Harry's 'abnormality' a secret was beginning to take its toll on Vernon. Dudley had enjoyed watching his cousin suffer at first, but now he was starting to lose interest. Harry even imagined he saw a look of concern on his face once. Petunia had never approved of violence, no matter how she despised her nephew, but did not dare to stand up to her 6-foot tall, 275-lb. husband.

Knowing that if Sirius, Harry's godfather, didn't hear from him, they would be as good as dead, once they forced Harry to scribble a quick letter and, closely supervised, he would send Hedwig out with it. However, Vernon had caught him trying to send Ron a SOS, and had locked Hedwig up permanently. It had been a week and a half since she had been let out, and Harry figured she yearned for fresh meat instead of stale bread.

Vernon grabbed Harry's small wrist, and raised his other hand in the air. He brought down with a crack across Harry's face. The force of the blow sent Harry reeling across the bed, and he hit his head, causing a large semi spherical dent in the wall.

Harry bit his lip hard to keep from crying out, and he gingerly placed a hand on the back of his hand, where a bump was already beginning to grow. Little black spots danced in front of his eyes.

But Vernon wasn't done yet.

He grabbed the closest object, Hedwig's cage, and wretched it quickly across Harry's temple, sending him flying into the other wall. Pictures shook and crashed to the floor, and Petunia and Dudley finally emerged in the doorway.

"Vernon!" Petunia shrieked. "Stop! You'll kill him!"

Vernon, who had raised the owl's cage in the air again, stopped in mid- swing and turned to his wife. The twisted smile on his face sent shivers down his family's spines. In three long steps, Vernon crossed the room, shoved his family out the door, and locked it. Outside in the hall, Petunia pounded on the door, screaming at her husband. Dudley, who looked frightened enough to wet his pants, waddled as fast as he could into his room.

Vernon continued to rain blows on Harry's head and body. Harry, who was barely clinging on to consciousness, could only hear Petunia's frightened cries outside the door and the occasional clang of the cage as it collided with his skin.

Suddenly, everything was silent. Harry's eyelids were aching to close as he gazed at the door. Every few seconds, it would shake fiercely. All of a sudden, the entire door exploded into bits, raining slivers of wood on Harry and Vernon.

Standing in the doorframe was the gaunt, wiry figure of Sirius Black.