Harry stepped on the gas and sped home, not worried about cops. It was a quiet neighbor hood and cops were rarely ever needed. When he got home, he had five minutes to spare. He sat in his parked car and looked at the package. The top had been torn about five inches, and he grew worried. He ripped it open and pulled out the magazine, smiling when he saw it was the right issue. He opened it to the contents and found where his story was supposed to be. Page 84. Flipping through the pages, he came to page 83 and looked on the other side. Page 99. He looked back. 83, 99. The pages had been torn out.

He cut it out, he thought to himself. How did he do that?

"I don't know," he answered himself. "But he did it." He stood up and went into the house. The story title was still in the table of contents which was good enough, so Shooter would just have to accept that.

When he got inside, he sat down on his sofa and stared at Shooter's hat on his table, the one he was coming for. Shrugging, he picked it up and tried it on for the heck of it, then went to the mirror to see how it looked.

Why'd you try it on? his mind asked.

"I don't know," he answered back.

Maybe he wanted you to.

"Why would he want me to try on his hat?" he asked, a little annoyed.

Because maybe he wanted you to...

"Wanted me to what?" he asked, turning to the side, facing himself. There was two of him in the room, him, and then the him in his mind, talking to him.

"To get confused," he answered.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, walking over to the door. The other Harry was leaning against it, cleaning his glassed with his shirt.

"Now wait a second, back up, pilgrim. Think about it."

"About what?" he asked, turning to the sofa, only to find himself sitting there.

"About those deaths, how they were all tied to you, and yet Shooter never set a foot in your house."

"What are you suggesting?" he asked, turning to the stairs.

"What about the stories being so much alike? He'd have to be a mind reader to accomplish that."

"Leave me alone," he muttered to himself.

"How do you even know this Shooter was real?"

"I'm wearing his bruises aren't I? Aren't I?"

"Are you?"

He rolled up his sleeves and looked. The bruises were gone, and there was no sign of them ever being there. "What's going on?"

"Think about it. You were almost a killer once."

He suddenly thought back to when he barged in on Malfoy and Cho. He had brought a handgun with him and even pointed it at them, ready to fire. "The gun was not loaded!" he shouted.

"But you wanted to kill her."

"The gun was not loaded!"

"Now listen to me," said the other him, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. "This is how it is. There is no Shooter. He was in your imagination."

"Stop it!" he shouted.

"Look, just call a doctor, an tell him to get down here as fast as he can and lock you up in a nut house so you can't hurt anyone else."

"I never killed anyone!"

"Really?"

"Shut up!" He picked up a book from his chair and threw it so hard that when it his the wall, it left a hole. A crack emerged from it and raced up the wall, across the roof and down the other wall. Harry turned back to the mirror and saw himself, but his back was facing him. He stepped closer to it, but saw his reflection walking backwards to him. His migrane was back and he stared at himself helplessly. "What is happening to me?" he muttered.

"I think you know," said a familiar voice behind him. He turned and looked up at John Shooter who was standing on the steps, hands in his pockets casually.

"You don't exist," said Harry, who was starting to understand what was happening.

"Of coarse I do," said Shooter. "I exist because you created me."

Harry had a sudden flash back, back when he and Cho were first married. They were at a garage sale and he was facing an old mirror, wearing Shooter's hat. "Hey look!" he called to Cho. She turned and looked at him, laughing a little. "I'm a dairy farmer from Mississippi," he said in a southern twang.

"I was the side of you that never came out. I did everything you didn't have the nerve to do, Mr. Potter."

He saw himself burning their house to the ground. Then he saw himself in the truck with Tom Greenleaf and Lance, right before he killed them. He saw that as well. All these things came pouring into his head at once and he gave a cry, falling on his knees. He had done all those things, but it wasn't him.

He looked up at Shooter. "Why are you here?" he asked.

"Think about it," said Shooter. "I told you before." Harry stood up and Shooter came over to him. "What's the real reason I come here for?" Harry thought about it and suddenly, to his horror, realized something. He was living his own story! Secret Window, Secret Garden, and Sewing Season were about exactly what was happening to him now. All that was left was...

"The ending," he muttered. "You came to fix the ending." Outside he could hear a car pulling into his driveway.

"And how do you suppose we should do that?" asked Shooter. Harry looked out the window and saw the car turn off and Cho climb out of the driver's seat. His eyes strayed to the hat in his hands and he put it on, heading up the stairs silently.

When Cho stepped into the house after knocking and calling for Harry seven times, she was a little shocked with what she found. Everything was torn out of place and thrown all around the house. Chairs were thrown over, papers were scattered all over the floor, and other furnature had been turned over. It looked like someone had broken in. She felt nervous as she stepped in. "Harry?" she called.

There was no answer, and she wandered around nervously, looking for him. She found an issue of Ellory Queen's Mystery Magazine laying on the stairs, and she slowly climbed up them, becoming more and more fearful. "Harry? Are you home?" She walked over to his desk and spotted a manuscript laying there.

Sewing Season

by, John Shooter

"Shooter?" she muttered. She picked up the manuscript to look at it, but found something scratched on the wooden desk under neath.

Shooter Shooter Shooter Shooter

She looked up and spotted the drapes. Shaving cream had been sprayed on them forming one word.

Shooter

She looked down on the coffee table, spotting another word carved into it.

Shooter

Shooter was carved into every wall, and as she turned, reading it across the wall behind her, she saw where it came to a dead stop.

Shoot

Harry's bedroom door was open, and when it closed, a word was carved onto the other side.

Her

Cho gasped, and saw Harry standing there when the door had been pushed shut. He was wearing a black quaker hat, and his face was down, but his eyes were looking up at her, menacingly. She became afraid. Something told her she was not looking at Harry at all.

"There... y-you are," she muttered. "Where... Where'd you get that old thing?"

"It's mine," he said in a southern twang that sounded too real. "Always has been, little missy."

"I was worried..."

"Sure you were now," he said, stepping towards her. Cho stepped to the side and started heading for the stairs. "I been waiting for you to come."

"Why?" she asked, stepping down the stairs. He followed her as she climbed down them backwards, not daring to turn her back to him for a minute.

"For Harry," he said with an evil grin. "Oh I never laid a hand on him, I swear. He took the coward's way out."

"Why are you talking like this?" she asked, trembling now.

"It's just how I talk." She noticed for the first time that he was hiding something behind his back. He saw that she noticed and smiled. "And now, I'm gonna do what he never had the nerve to do." His hand whipped out and a pair of razor sharp scissors were pointed to her. Cho screamed and ran down the steps, but he grabbed her by the hair, cutting a lock off. She tore free and ran out of the house and to her car.

Harry dropped the scissors and walked out after her, knowing she wouldn't get away. Cho put the keys into the ignition, but the emergency brake light turned on, as well as the 'no gas' light. The car wouldn't move, and she looked over, just in time to see Harry take a large rock and smash it through the passanger window. The car suddenly began to roll backwards and out of control, but he still managed to reach in and grab her by the hair and pull her out, tossing her to the ground like a rag doll. He then grabbed her by the jacket and dragged her into the house, screaming all the way.

She was dropped on the living room floor, and he picked up a screw driver from the coffee table, stabbing it into her leg as she tried to crawl away. Cho gave out a scream in pain and kicked him in the face. Harry bent over to spit out a tooth, looking up to see Cho on her feet, blood squirting from her leg, and running to out the back door. She stripped on the wooden steps and fell to the rocky ground, skinning up her knees. There was no escape now, and she lay on her back, watching as Harry picked up a shovel and approached her.

"Sorry things had to go this way, miss," he said, tipping his hat. "But you've left me no choice."

"You are Harry Potter," she wept.

"It'll do him some good to be able to relax for once and not have to think about you."

"You are Harry Potter," she repeated in a weaker tone.

"So good riddance."

"You are Harry Potter," she rasped, barely even audible. He started to raise the shovel, but stopped, hearing a car pulling into the drive way, and stepped off to the side, so Malfoy never saw him when he came running in.

"Cho?" he shouted. Cho started screaming for him to go, but instead he ran to her, recieving a dirrect blow to the face from the shovel. Cho cried out in misery and watched helplessly as Harry stepped up to him and rammed the shovel into his chest like it was a sword. He then turned to her, approaching her with the shovel raised to strike.

""I can do it," Todd Downey said, helping himself to another ear of corn from the steaming bowl," he said, staring at her with a killer's eyes. ""I think that in time her death will be a mystery, even to me...""