Premature Exit

Disclaimer: If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, I don't own Harry Potter.

A/N: I would like to thank all my reviewers for their great reviews, and, as so many of you have said things I want to answer, I am giving you individual replies for your reviews. Just scroll down to the end.

Chapter 5

Harry spent the next few days spending time with his family, his parents had been able to rearrange the world around him so that it looked like a reasonably normal place, and they were able to come and go as they wished. It turned out that spirits have the ability to create illusions such as the one that he found himself quite comfortable in, but as James had mentioned darkly, it was their only ability. The world was painted blue and green and was falsely bright, the grass and flowers were beautiful to look at but Harry still had the feeling that he was walking through mist. He had a home, or somewhere that would pass for it, and a bed to sleep in. That first meeting had seemed so very strange, but now so far away. Harry had replayed it in his head so many times over now he was beginning to wonder if the mirror of erised had been behind the veil and he had simply been sucked in. Harry remembered feeling so nervous, and then…nothing. He had not found it hard to talk to his parents and they had not asked him to explain what had happened during his whole turbulent life. Lily had told him that they had heard everything from people who passed through to the spiritual plane, she had told him a lot of the spiritual plane, and from what she had said it sounded a lot better than where he was now. She had smiled and told him about the countless truths and legends of the other dimension, as if making up for not being able to tell him stories as a child. Harry liked her smile, it illuminated her face and made her green eyes light up, she smiled and talked to him and Harry almost forgot where he was. Almost. Harry could never stop thinking about what was happening in what his parents called the material plane, the plane where he was supposed to be. Harry remembered asking her about the planes one time after he had met her, she had been happy to answer.

"There are…many planes, only Merlin would know how many, I expect. There are the two more obvious ones, the material plane, that's where you should be, Harry, and the spiritual plane, that's where wizards spirits go when they leave their bodies," she had said, Harry noticed some emphasis on the words 'you should be'. "Then there are other, less significant planes, this one for instance, remember anything crazy? Something not quite real from your world? Well, it's certain to have come from here," she went on, Harry wondered vaguely if this was where Luna Lovegood had originated from, but then kept listening to what his mother had to say. "There's the emotional plane too, where your emotions come from, you know Dementors? That's where they came from," Lily told him. This sparked an interest in Harry.

"It figures that Dementors aren't from our world," he joked. Lily had beamed at him, even…looked proud? Harry did not know her well enough to read her emotions.

He was still a little surprised at how smoothly his first conversation with his parents had actually gone, to be honest. Sirius had helped lighten the mood and since then had been a great deal happier than Harry had ever seen him before. He had asked so many questions, and, for once in his life, he had actually got answers. Answers full of detail that held back nothing, he had never felt more grateful. But he had not asked the one question he was dying to know the answer to, how could he possibly begin? Was he to simply ask his parents out of the blue why Voldemort had wanted to kill him and why they died? Was he meant to sit down at the polished breakfast table and announce he wanted to hear something about prophecies? Were the two of them even connected? Harry had a strange suspicion that they were.

He had managed to say a lot, and he'd got a lot in return, but they hadn't talked about the night Lily and James had died, the night Harry received his lightening shaped scar. They had talked about usual things, and Harry had noted he felt much more comfortable with these people than he ever had with the Dursleys.

They had wanted to know why Harry was visiting the planes, and both seemed a little shocked to have seen Harry, still very much alive, standing exactly where Cedric told them he was. Harry and Sirius had managed to retell the story of how he had been lured into the department of mysteries and followed Sirius through a veil in which he had fallen into. Lily and James had shared a look then but neither Harry nor Sirius inquired anything. After the crazy, almost unreal explanation they had been able to give, both Harry's parents accepted it. Together, they had managed to create a world similar to that in the material plane, it was just an illusion covering what they had seen before, but an illusion that was as real and as solid as they were.

Harry remembered watching, fascinated, as the space around him began to change. He had looked everywhere for signs that none of this was real, but he found none. The flower patches that Lily had insisted on outside the door were fresh and blooming like a patch of radiant colours. Lily liked exotic flowers. Harry remembered grabbing the door handle, no resistance, it opened easily, and taking a few steps inside. There had been car keys hanging up beside the door, he remembered looking at them curiously and James appearing beside him, shaking his head.

"Lily…she always forgets we don't have a car…" Harry had not known whether to grin or not until his father smirked and he thought it would be all right to allow himself a grin.

Sirius had also seemed impressed by everything; he'd looked around and raised his eyebrows.

"Prongs, I never knew you had a creative side…apart from Harry, here, of course," he had said. James had challenged Sirius to a fight and before he knew it a stag and a large black dog were outside playfighting like little kids. Harry had seen his father transform before then, and he had certainly seen Sirius transform, but everything was very slightly crazy. He had watched in amusement, feeling like the adult in the situation.

Lily had then come out, fiddling with a lock of her hair and jokingly tutting.

"You two set such a great example for Harry," she said sarcastically, then she watched, standing by her son. "I wish you'd told me about Remus, though, I would have loved to be able to transform into an animal."

Harry looked beside him to see her gazing dreamily into oblivion. He was reminded forcefully of his friends back at home, the home that was Hogwarts and not an imitation. He wondered if they were aware what had happened to him, and if they too were wondering about him. He knew that Ron and Hermione would be researching everything, looking for ways to bring him back. He felt almost guilty that he wasn't trying to get back, or even asking about it. Did they already know about the prophecy? Had Dumbledore told them so that they would understand? Who was he to even assume that they had been well and safe, having escaped Voldemort? But Harry knew somewhere that his friends, including Ginny, Neville and Luna had been all right and saved. This eased his guilt only slightly.

It was the third day of living in this real but unreal world that Harry woke up in his strange, yet somewhat amazing bedroom and had strolled downstairs for something to eat. He had been lying awake in his bed almost all night, feeling worried about his friends but also worrying about telling his parents that he needed to leave. He needed to leave, he needed to go back, but did he really want to? Harry tried not to ask himself that question, he was a little afraid of what his answer would be. He also needed to finally ask something, anything, about the prophecy. He had gone through the conversation they would have in his head and each time it had gone dreadfully wrong; he was almost feeling sick but still intended to say something. He took a deep breath when he reached the door into the kitchen but then stopped when he heard the voices coming from inside. His parents and Sirius were in there, and he could not help overhearing what they were saying.

"So why wasn't I told about the prophecy?" Sirius asked, trying to sound casual but clearly slightly miffed, "I would never have let that rat scum-"

"Sirius!" said Lily in a scolding voice.

"Lily, he sold us out to Voldemort," James said firmly, "Harry could have…could have died."

"I suppose you're right," Lily replied, sounding thoughtful, "but I could never imagine…I mean, I've thought about it all these years and it's never made sense, Peter could have never…he wasn't that sort of…I don't know."

Harry felt anger in his heart at the sound of Peter Pettigrew's name, because of Wormtail, this world he had been living in had never become reality. This was nice, but it wasn't the same. Harry almost felt mad with his Mother for sounding as if she still couldn't believe what Wormtail had done. When she spoke she sounded so…forgiving. He wanted to spit at the thought, but then they would have known he was there and promptly stopped talking about the prophecy. Wormtail could never, ever be forgiven.

"Back to what I was saying before…" Sirius said impatiently after a few seconds of silence. There was no reply from either of Harry's parents for a moment, and then:

"Yes, Padfoot, but I think Harry wants to listen. You can come out, Harry, we won't bite…admittedly, Padfoot could if he transformed right now…" said James' voice.

Harry instantly realised that spirits were able to see through their own illusions and both his parents had probably been aware of him from when he had starting eavesdropping. Harry felt almost embarrassed as he pushed the door open and came into view.

But all this was soon forgotten. He was about to find out what he had been longing to know since this whole ordeal had began in the department of mysteries. He sat, slightly nervous, slightly afraid of what he was going to hear.

But it surely couldn't be too bad, could it?


Haha! Harry is wrong! I was really getting into that back there :) I hope you didn't think that chapter was badly thought out, I did do a lot of thinking, I thought about how I could possibly show Harry and his parents' first speech. But then I realised that I didn't need to, if any of you have read fics where Harry meets his parents and they have that long awkward conversation that ultimately climaxes in "we're proud of you, Son," and almost always has "we've been watching you," in it somewhere, you will understand why I didn't. I thought that giving little bits of speech about random things would be enough. I hope you get the idea Harry is starting to bond with his parents, I can't stand those stories when they meet and suddenly everyone is all best friends and act like they have known each other for years. I also hope I pulled off that whole illusionary atmosphere right, I was fully aware that creating them a whole could go drastically wrong. Well, you can tell me if it did go wrong, I always enjoy reading your reviews.

Reviewers (People who brighten up my day after I am unable to finish my maths exam and receive the awful results of my physics exam :P)

MachiavellianOrange: Thank you again for another review, I am really glad you liked how I decided to write Harry's emotions.

Shadow of the black abyss: I'm thankful that you liked that last sentence, it's makes a difference when people tell me, you know ;) Thank you.

Moonfyre: Cheers for your review. I feel honoured that you cannot wait for this chapter, it's great to have such fantastic reviewers. I also hope that Lily and James aren't too much of a 'unit' in this chapter (I do understand what you mean, and stories like that bug me too).

Lady Arwen of Rivendell: Thanks for your review, I love your name by the way (Arwen is awesome). As for the people in the material plane, they won't be in this story until Harry gets back, as this story follows Harry in the same way that the books do. I'm thinking about writing a companion fic about Ron and Hermione whilst all this is happening…I'll keep you updated on the situation.

Padfoot's fire: Thanks for reviewing again, I tried to keep the story from getting too mushy, the only things I like mushy are peas (proper fish and chip style, yummy). If I can, I'll try to get a few jokes in, but it all comes down to the fact I am not a funny person. I am told that I am sarcastic funny than actual funny, which is absoloutely great when I want to write comedy. (See? There I go again…)

Oh my gosh. In the time it has taken for me to write out individual replies I have got four new reviews. Crazyness. Absoloute crazyness. Here we go again…

Eric2: Thankfully all those reviews were you, I cannot thank you enough for reviewing. It's great that you're so interested in my fic and I'll try to keep it that way :P

So, after much stalling, I bid you farewell…and please review!