A/N: I really hope you like this. It was originally a one-shot until my friend told me it worked so much better as a chapter story, so there will be several short chapters. Also the same friend who gave me the title. Enjoy.

Disclaimer: If I were JK Rowling I wouldn't be writing measly little fics on I'd be writing big books for big bucks. And if I owned Harry Potter I'd be JK Rowling. What does that tell you?

Harry, the Boy-Who-Lived, stared at the ceiling of his bedroom at number 4. Despite the warm late summer weather his body was chilly between the sheets. An owl hooted on a branch outside, and Harry wondered vaguely if he knew the bird. He dared not get up to see. A sidelong glance at the clock beside his bed told him it was midnight, the witching hour. It should start any minute now.

Harry felt his eyes drooping but he snapped them open again. His brain, his sleep-deprived brain, begged for him to rest. Even if it was just for an instant. He ignored it, as he had for the past week. Sleep was the enemy; or rather sleep was the enemy's weapon.

Suddenly his scar came alight with pain. It seared his forehead, splitting open his skull. It was blinding, it was burning into his mind, into his heart, into his soul. The sound of Death Eaters' chanting was coming alive in his ear. If he'd have thought putting the pillow over his head would help, Harry would have. But he'd tried too many times before to do it now. Their mad intoning was growing louder and louder. A great hissing was slithering through their voices. Harry could hear the screams starting now. Women this time, three or four of them. Their voices were screeching for someone to help, to save them, to end the pain. Death Eaters were laughing cold laughs, a small child was crying. He knew if he closed his eyes he would see the images play out in front of his eyes, but he couldn't bear to look. A high voice bellowed an incantation, and the screams turned from horror to utter terror and sheer pain. A new voice was shrieking with them, a male one. After several seconds of shouting Harry realized it was his own voice, but he was much too distracted to stop. The image of a black cloaked person with a hood and a mask…people dead on the ground…a sickly green skull with a snake spewing from it's mouth floating over them…Harry kept yelling, tears rolling down his cheeks.

The door banged open. Vernon Dursley, dressed in a blue pinstriped sleeping gown and with his wife in tow, came charging into the room. He stopped at the foot of his nephew's bed and looked down at the shrieking boy. Pointing a fat sausage of a finger at him, Vernon began his tirade. He was already turning a nice shade of puce.

"Boy! You stop screaming this instant! This is the third time this week! Do you know what time it is!" He hollered.

"Vernon, the neighbors!" Petunia shushed him, hissing in his ear.

"Snap out of it and go back to bed. We will discuss it in the morning." Uncle Vernon, having quieted some, gave Harry one last glare as the teen's voice died. Then he stalked out of the room right behind his haggard-looking wife and slammed the door with force.

Harry slowly sat up and shoved his glasses up the bridge of his nose. His whole body was shaking, and cold sweat drenched his sheets. The room was spinning slightly. Feeling like he might start crying again or screaming, Harry drew his knees to his chest and hugged them. His thoughts followed the regular pattern of who and why.

Who where they? That was always the first question on his mind. Who were the people that had died tonight? Why had they died? Muggle-borns, or just someone on the wrong side of the Dark Lord? Why didn't the Order, the Ministry, do anything to stop it? Truth was, the ministry couldn't and the Order was lost. They no longer knew what to do, couldn't stop the random and almost nightly killings. Then of course Harry's next thought was always why me?

Of all the people in the world to bear this weight, why had God, fate, destiny, whatever you wanted to call it, chosen a scrawny teenage boy to fight a war? Now that he knew the prophecy, Harry questioned it. Why had Voldemort chosen to mark Harry as the equal? Why not Neville? Why not some other poor fool? Why had there been a prophecy at all?

Harry shook his head free of those thoughts. He carefully tried not to concentrate on the faces of those deceased women. He tried hard not to imagine what would happen to the young boy he had heard cry. A jet of pain shot through his scar and he knew whatever it was couldn't be good. To stifle his cry of pain he bit into his hand, effectively silencing his cry. However he left a good amount of teeth marks running across the back of his hand.

With a creak the door to his bedroom came open again. Harry looked up to see a very angry Dudley standing there. He didn't have to ask what his cousin had come for.

"Listen, you can't keep keeping me up for days like this. I won't stand for it. I need my rest, I can't go around with circles under my eyes…" His eyes darted to Harry's hands, his bedside dresser, anywhere near the boy. Harry knew Dudley was checking for his wand, and suddenly he wished it was near him. It would have been enough of a deterrent to keep his cousin away.

Instead the 16-year-old boy found 250 pounds of flesh and bone, and a little muscle, quite suddenly squashing him. Since he had been sitting up his back had gone into the wooden back of his headboard, painfully jabbing into him. Dudley's fists were finding every inch of Harry they could punch; ribs, stomach, eyes, nose, back to the ribs. One shoulder was shoving against Harry's throat, keeping him pinned and silencing him all at once. He turned his head to block a shot but they just kept coming anyways. Finally Dudley slouched off of him, spit on his leg and waddled out of the room.

"If you scream again, I swear I'll kill you." were his last words before the door creaked shut.

Harry sat there, too tired to move from the rather uncomfortable position against the headboard. Blood oozed slowly from a cut above his eyebrow, but he'd had much worse. He only stared forward, at the night filtering through his cloudy window to shine against the opposite wall. He didn't really remember sliding down to get under the covers, only feeling the pain in his back subside. Harry turned onto his side, once again wondering why me? He felt the cold metal nose piece of his glasses against his bridge. He stared at the dark wall, still wondering why me? Then he did something the Twilight Zone-like shows always warn about.

He wished.

He wished he wasn't himself.

Bright morning sun filtered onto his eyelids. Harry fluttered them faintly. They seemed to open of their own accord. Opened to a lovely sky blue ceiling with some clouds and bits of gold sparkles. That made no sense. His ceiling was dingy gray and….and it didn't move. For the gold sparkles were definitely moving. Squinting to see them a little better, he realized they were tiny life-like Snitches soaring across a sky. Before his brain had time to completely comprehend this, a humongous weight bounced itself on his ribcage.

A gigantic black thing was blocking his view of the strange enchanted ceiling. Hot breath blew against his face as a long pink slimy thing licked him again and again. Then the slimy thing retreated into the mouth of it's owner…a large shaggy black dog. It's green-gray eyes were happy and smiling, staring directly into Harry's own emerald green ones. If he could have with all that weight on him, Harry would have jumped.

"S-Sirius?" he asked quietly, too afraid he was dreaming, "Sirius, is it-is it really you?"