She fought her way up through the mists and past the veil again. It had grown harder and harder to return as the years went by, but she managed. She was both angry and pleased that Professor Dumbledore sent him back over the summers. He hated it there, she knew, and with good reason. Still, a small, selfish part of her was infinitely grateful for the chance to see him, to hold him, to know that he was well.
She never knew how long had passed since she had last seen him until she arrived. The little that she knew of his life came from what he muttered in his sleep—a trait that he had inherited from his father, though she doubted that he knew it.
She had been so proud of Harry. The youngest seeker in a century! James would have been ecstatic—and amused, she suspected, to find that his son also spent an inordinate amount of time playing, talking, and dreaming quidditch. She could just see the two of them together, laughing and playing together like the boys they both were…
But that would never happen, and the thought was like chill touch of a dementor's hand.
They had not been there to see Harry get his wand or cast his first spell. Did he even know that the Decree for the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry allowed parents to see their child's first spell cast? James had not been there to see Harry fly in his first match or to congratulate him on his first prank. (Harry was the son of a Marauder, and loath as she was to admit it, James's genes were unquestionably dominant there.) She had not been there to chide him about his misdemeanors or help him through his first crush—who was that Cho girl anyway?—but she was grateful that there were others who were. Still, they were missing so much of his life…he had gone through so much without them.
They had cried together twice: the night she found out about Sirius's fate, and later, his death. Twelve years in Azkaban! Even now, the thought was enough to make her weep. Good, funny, wonderful Sirius, always right behind James, always with that devilish sparkle in his dark eyes. He would not have left Harry for the world. Yet not even two years later Bellatrix—that bitch—had killed him, and left her Harry without the only adult who had ever offered to give him a real home.
Something about Harry changed on that night. She had felt it in him even before his anguished calls for his godfather revealed its cause. Her son was sharper. The little bits of Darkness that she had felt hovering around Harry before had formed a cloud that now covered him entirely. And for the first time since she had discovered that he had returned, she truly feared for her son.
Harry had gone away then, and he had come back only once, two years later. Apparently it had been one of Professor Dumbledore's last requests, and she wondered again exactly how much that man had known. Tom Riddle—as they had taken to calling him—had finally been defeated, but at a terrible cost. Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall had fallen, along with three members of the Weasley family and more than a hundred others. And her little boy had been at the center of it all.
She and James had known about the prophecy, of course. Dumbledore had told them himself and then offered to become their Secret-Keeper. It was an offer that she had never forgiven herself for turning down.
Harry had killed the Dark Lord, and it had nearly broken him. The Darkness that she had felt before had loosened its hold on him, but nevertheless remained. She had held her son all night, rubbing circles on his back just as she had done when he was a baby. When the morning came, she had kissed him goodbye, holding on to that one tiny spark of hope that she still retained.
She could feel the difference in him before she materialized. The change was so great, in fact, that she wondered if she had accidentally crossed over to the other side.
But no: there, not four feet away, her son slept peacefully in an enormous antique four-poster bed that she recognized immediately. Shocked, she quickly surveyed the room and reached the same conclusion. They were in the master bedroom of Gryphon Manor. Harry had restored the Potter ancestral seat.
She moved around the room quietly, taking note of the painstakingly meticulous effort Harry had put into recreating Gryphon. All of the old furniture had been restored and the new windows were of the same broad 17th-century French design. The walls were exactly as they had been before the war, even down to the elaborate hand-tooled décor on the siding that matched the rest of the furniture.
Her mind reeled. This was impossible. She was dreaming, putting Harry in her memories of Gryphon and creating her very own fantasy for him. After all, the spell only allowed her to see Harry while he was living with her blood, and Petunia would have rather died than set foot in Gryphon. And yet, it was such a lovely dream—
"Mother?" a soft voice asked incredulously.
A/N: Please review!!! If anyone has any suggestions at to who I should pair Harry with, please let me know. Technically all five chapters of this fic are written (though not edited), but I have yet to put a name and face to Harry's girl (I did say that this would end happy, didn't I?). Let me know what you think of the fic. I know it's not my best work, but I'm curious as to what people think of the idea, at least.