Disclaimer: All characters herein except those otherwise noted belong to J.K. Rowling, who I think, on occasion, to be some sort of goddess. Inspired by another fic of mine, and throught out while sitting through much boredom at work. Spoilers for all five books, I suppose.
Through Time
Prologue: In the Looking-Glass
Harry Potter walks the halls of Hogwarts School, wrapped in the Invisibility Cloak, his slippered feet making no sound on the stone floors. The cloak makes the slightest of whispers on the stone as he moves along the deserted corridor.
He stops, looking up. It seems as though he stands before a mirror, looking at an image of himself that he knows cannot exist. There is a boy, same dark hair, same glasses, standing there, holding the same sort of lamp.
Harry opens his mouth to speak, but suddenly the other boy turns and opens his mouth in a scream, but no sound ever escapes. Harry catches a brief glimpse of three other figures flickering faintly in the hallway before the image of him disappears.
Harry woke with a start, his scar burning, as usual. He reached up and rubbed at it gently, hoping to ease the pain and clear his head. He sat up and slid out of the bed at Number Four, Privet Drive. This dream was different. All summer, he dreamt the same dream, the same as last summer, of wandering down a corridor. Before, it had never been inside the school, and he had never met himself.
Something nagged at the back of his mind. Something about his mirror image bothered him. Something had been off—he couldn't have seen himself in any mirror while wearing the invisibility cloak.
He pulled out a piece of parchment and began a letter to Hermione, with a sharp pang of sadness for the fact that he normally would have also penned a letter to his godfather. A solitary tear wound it's way down Harry's cheek as he dipped in quill in the bottle of ink and began to write.
~`~
James Potter woke with a start, sitting up in his bed in the sixth year boy's dormitory of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Pain was lancing through his forehead, and he reached his hand up, expecting to feel blood there. There was nothing, just the slowly receding pain.
He looked around the room, noting the Saturday morning sunlight streaming through the windows—they were likely to miss breakfast yet again. He looked around, noting that none of the other occupants of the dormitory, in various states of sleep. Sirius Black slept in the bed next to James's own, his pale arm extending out through the half-parted draperies. Across the room from James was Peter Pettegrew, sprawled spread eagled in the middle of his bed. At the top of the room, surrounded by windows on either side of the bed, slept Remus Lupin, the last of James's closest friends, and the one he would pester with his Divination textbook to find the meaning of the dream. Remus had managed to switch ends of the bed during the night, and had his head sticking over the end of the bed, his pillows and blankets half on the floor.
James got up and walked the length of the room, still in his pajamas. The fifth occupant of the room was absent, a fact that did not surprise James. Frank Longbottom did his best to ignore the other boys he shared the dorm with. James threw the window curtains open completely and let the sunlight stream into the dim dormitory.
Then, a mischievous smile stretching across his face, he walked across the room and picked up his wand. One word of Latin and an enormous bang echoed around the room, having the desired effect of waking the other Marauders. Sirius rolled off the bed, Peter let out a shriek, and Remus banged his head on the footboard.
"Bloody hell, Prongs," Sirius said, his voice muffled as he attempted to disengage himself from the bed hangings, which had followed him on his abrupt descent to the floor. Remus was glaring at James, rubbing the lump that was growing on the back of his skull.
"Woke you up, didn't it?" James asked, smiling, self-satisfied.
"Don't do it again," Sirius said, using his wand to magic his drapes back into place. He said it with the air of threat that never meant anything to James, but always made Peter gasp.
"Whatever you say, Padfoot," James said. He changed into his robes and waited for the other boys to ready themselves for breakfast. Remus looked at his watch.
"Hurry, or we'll not have any breakfast," he said, and the quartet raced down the stairs, through the Gryffindor Common Room, and down to the great hall.
During breakfast, James leaned close to Remus to whisper as Sirius embarked on his usual loud let's-make-fun-of-Snape routine.
"Remus, I need you to help me." James whispered.
"With what?" Remus asked, his words muffled around a huge bite of toast. It was unlike James to admit that he needed help.
"Well, I had this dream. I was in the hall, and I saw myself, except it wasn't me, it couldn't have been, because I was under the … cloak. And when I woke up, it was like someone had stabbed me in the forehead." James spilled out quickly, unable to look at Remus.
When he looked up, Remus had dropped his toast and was staring at James.
"What?" James asked.
"James, this could be SERIOUS, do you know that? I mean, really." Remus said.
"I know, I know. I knew you'd say that," he said. Then he sighed. "Please don't tell Sirius, okay? He'll think I'm mad."
"He already does," Remus said, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips.
James frowned. "Okay, mad-er, then," he corrected, a sparkle lighting up his dark eyes.
"I'll look, James. But I can't guarantee I'll find anything." Remus said.
"It's the thought that counts, right? Besides, stinging pain in the head accompanying dreams has to be in a book somewhere, right?"
"Right."