Due to ...er ... popular request, I'm extending this original one-shot into a full length story. It's a shame you already know the story - I usually find it more interesting when the end is a surprise - but hey, you'll live. OK, here we go.


Harry Potter woke up with a start to the voice of his mother after a long, disturbing dream. He closed his eyes, sitting up in bed, trying to remember the details. There had been someone … someone he hated. Many people he hated, all crowding around him in a dark room.

Shaking off just another dream, the boy got up from his blue sheets and descended down the stairs towards the smell of waffles wafting to him from the kitchen where his mother was cooking.

"Hi, mum," said Harry, plopping down on the chair around the kitchen table.

This woman's name was Aryan Craft. She had long, blonde hair, and she looked nothing at all like Harry. He was a foster child, adopted by the Craft's since his Aunt and Uncle had abandoned him at an orphanage, finally sick of him. He was already too old, however, to change his name, already being eleven years of age, and so he remained Harry Potter, adopted son of the Craft's.

"Hello, dear," she said in a slightly awkward tone.

"What's wrong?" he asked her, taken slightly aback by her tone, so very different from the one he remembered hearing in the past seven years of his life.

"Oh, nothing," she said absently. "Just a bad night. Bad dreams."

"Yeah, me too."

Mrs Craft cleared her throat. "Another one?"

Harry nodded. "Don't remember, though." He could not help but notice that Mrs Craft was looking purposefully everywhere but at him as she served him her home-made waffles.

"Well, that's no different, though. Nothing to get upset about."

"I'm not getting upset. Mum, are you OK?"

"Oh, yes, dear. I'm fine. Where's your father?"

"Upstairs. Hey, can I go to the mall this afternoon with Joey?"

"Who?"

"Mum, are you sure you're alright?"

Mrs Craft spun around so quickly she almost dropped the plate she was holding. "I'm fine!" Taking a few deep breaths to calm down, she continued. "Who did you say Joey was?"

Harry frowned and spoke very slowly, almost as if she was a thick monkey. "He's been my best friend since my twelfth birthday. Don't you remember all the times he spent the night?"

Mrs Craft set down the plate she was cleaning and dried her hands on a rag behind her. He could not see her face, her head bowed and turned away from him, but she was not behaving like herself.


The old man's silver face was lined with concern and grief. "You slipped, Aryan."

She nodded. "I know. It's the first day, I was surprised, scared of how he'd be."

"We told you exactly how he would be. He would awaken from a dream, probably exhausted and hungry. We showed you countless movies of his 'past', told you dozens of names of people in the time you've 'shared' together. And yet you forget the name 'Joey'?"

Aryan looked down away from those blue eyes. She had never seen the silver man this upset about anything, and it was frightening. That piercing gaze over his half-moon spectacles did nothing to calm her as it had done so many times before with his patience and understanding. It all seemed gone, now. He just seemed angry, like he had a vicious lion underneath the surface, struggling to get out.

"He will be monitored at the mall, and when he returns, he will ask you about it."

Aryan looked up, afraid of what she would see. The old man was pressing the tips of his fingers together, his eyes closed, breathing deeply. "Yes?"

"They are members of the Order. Now that the Dark Lord is gone, their job is to make sure he never finds out what happened to him. He must never find out the truth, Aryan."

She nodded.

"You will tell him you have no idea what he's talking about, and it was probably in his imagination. He's just tired and needs to get some sleep. Please tell me what I just said to you, Aryan."

"Don't know what he's talking about, just his imagination, tired, get some sleep."

"Good."


Review replies:

StellaBlu: I'm glad you liked it. I was actually feeling uber self-conscious about this story. I don't really like how it turned out, but everyone told me to extend it, so yay!

PentagonMerlin: Hee hee hee. I hate finishing things. I guess you figured that out. Well, it's your own fault now that this story will never be finished. That's the beauty of one-shots. They're always finished.

Padfoot: YAY! I made you cry! dunno how... but YAYAYAYAYAYAY! That totally made my icky day less icky by a lot... or something along those lines. Well, hope you enjoyed chapter one ish...

(Also, I'm looking for a certain DracoHarry avatar. If anyone knows where they have good DMHP animated avatars, let me know. It might just be the one I'm looking for.) -- Wow... that was random...