A/N: As promised...this plot (with some minor and major alterations) is from Star Trek: Enterprise, episode 62 "Similitude". My apologies to Manny Coto for abusing his concept so thoroughly.
He was rising, rising... floating upwards...above where he felt comfortable and safe, but he couldn't stop...up, up...toward...what?
When Harry Potter awoke, the clock was chiming ten in the evening. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the hospital wing, and his eyes protested.
Someone moved to shade him from the glare, and he opened his eyes just a sliver. He saw fuzzy figures around him, faces turned to him, but he couldn't see very well.
A hand put his glasses onto his face, and he blinked at all of the people standing around his bed.
"Harry!" Ron cried. Hermione beamed at him, and Lupin smiled his wolfish grin. Even Snape seemed somehow happy to see him. Harry looked blearily around at the smiling faces.
"Enough, that's enough," Pomfrey said, hustling them all out. She looked very tired. "He needs his rest."
"I..." Harry croaked.
"I will stay with him, Poppy," said Dumbledore. He pulled up a chair and settled himself by Harry's side as the rest of his visitors left the room. "Now, Harry, you mustn't overexert yourself. Don't move."
"Professor..."
"Ah, ah, ah, what did I say?" Dumbledore conjured a glass of water and floated it over to Harry's lips. "Drink."
Harry obediently drank, and the glass of water settled itself onto his bedside table.
"Better?"
"Yes."
"You gave us quite a scare there, Harry," Dumbledore smiled.
"I...I was trying out a new spell..."
"And it backfired on you. Very badly."
"How long have I been here?"
"A little over a week."
Harry's hand wandered to the bandages on the back of his head.
"Bad?"
"Serious enough."
Harry nodded.
"Harry, I am going to check your magic levels. Just lie still, please."
Dumbledore retrieved his wand from his sleeve and ran it over Harry, scanning him. He made a satisfied sound and put the wand away again.
"Strong and solid, Harry. Excellent."
"What..."
Images and sounds started floating through his consciousness...a picture book with moving animals...two tiny arms wrapped around a much larger man in black...a bathroom stall...a stone splashing across clear water...
Harry looked up at Dumbledore, startled. Suddenly, his face straightened itself.
"Professor. I know what happened to me."
"Yes, Harry, you were knocked out by a surge of magic. You should not have tried that spell unsupervised."
"No, that's not what I mean and you know it."
Dumbledore's head snapped up. He looked closely at the boy in front of him.
"I remember. It's coming back to me...everything..." He took a deep breath. "I can't change what happened to him, but I can change what's going to happen to me."
Dumbledore's eyes met Harry's. From behind the glasses of Harry Potter, the eyes of Jimmy Potter stared back at him. He was temporarily speechless.
"I..."
Harry held up a thin hand to stop him.
"Professor, it's OK," he said softly. "Really, it's fine."
"I...we...had no idea this would happen. I'm so sorry..." Dumbledore trailed off, at a loss for words.
"I'm not. He's not."
Dumbledore's eyes got even larger. "Is he...with you?"
"Yes, Uncle Albus," and the smile was genuine.
"Jimmy...Harry, you know I can't be your Uncle Albus any more."
Harry nodded. "I know. The time for that is gone now. But I remember how happy he was..." His eyes stared off into space.
Dumbledore could think of nothing to say.
"Please, Professor..."
"Anything, Harry."
"Please don't tell anyone about this. I don't want them to have to know."
Dumbledore nodded. "It will be our secret. Are you going to be able to be like this?"
"I can't be sure, but I think I'm going to be fine," Harry replied after a moment. "This is going to take a little getting used to, though. I'm not going to go all loony on you. You can count on me. And he left me this."
Harry lifted a small box from his bedside table, and opened it. Inside was a small carved stone bowl on a pedestal. A few silvery wisps swirled around inside it.
"Before the operation, he bought gifts for everyone. This was mine. He knew I might be needing it, in case this was all too much."
Harry extracted a piece of paper from the box, and held it out to Dumbledore. Dumbledore took the paper and read it.
Harry, this is a pensieve. Lupin or Snape or Dumbledore can help you with it if you need. I've left a few things in it that you might find useful. You know what to do.
-- Jim
Dumbledore carefully refolded the paper and returned it to Harry, who put it back in the box with the pensieve.
"As if he hasn't already given me everything."
"This is a burden I didn't think you'd have to carry, my boy."
"I have memories of a happy childhood surrounded by people who loved me. That's not a burden at all."
Dumbledore smiled to himself...then Harry said,
"What worries me is how I'm ever going to be able to look myself in the mirror now."
The old wizard looked up, startled.
"Professor," Harry said, urgently, pushing himself up into a sitting position. His mouth worked as he tried to find the words...
"How could you do this? I don't mean, make me have to live with this. Not that. I mean, how could you ... bring him into this world, and then do that?" He spoke with no accusation in his voice, just anguish.
Dumbledore sat motionless for a few moments.
"I didn't think that we had a choice, Harry. We needed you, and this was the only way to get you back. Everything else had to be put aside..."
"Everything?" Harry put his head in his hands, and ran his fingers stiffly through his hair; when they touched the gauze at the back of his head, the hands jumped away as if they'd been burned. "He gave up everything for me. Everything! He had no choice! How much more are we going to have to give, Professor? How much is too much? When will it all stop?" He looked around distractedly, as if seeking a door that wasn't there.
The bookcase was still open to the room beyond. A shadow passed across Harry's face, and he motioned at it. It slid back into place with a decisive thump.
"When Voldemort is gone, Harry," Dumbledore said quietly.
Harry nodded mutely, and sagged. He raised his eyes to Dumbledore.
"I don't know if I could have done it. I don't know if I could have made that choice, Professor. I don't know if I would have been strong enough. I don't know if I will be able to be when I need to be."
His hands shook on the blanket. Dumbledore covered one of them with one of his own.
"Your strength has never ceased to amaze me through all of this. Just a little longer, Harry."
Harry nodded.
"But for the next few days, your only responsibility is to rest and recover. Not for the battle ahead, but just for yourself."
They sat in silence for a moment.
"May I ask something else?"
"Of course."
"I'd like to see him."
Dumbledore nodded, and a wheelchair rolled over to Harry's bed. He lifted himself into it, and Dumbledore pushed him slowly to the screen in the corner of the room.
The bed behind the screen contained a lone figure, covered with a sheet. Harry reached up and pulled the sheet away from the figure's face.
"He looks like me."
"Yes, Harry. Almost exactly the same."
Silence.
"Professor, I'd like to be alone now, if that's alright."
"Of course."
Dumbledore left Harry sitting by the bedside.
The next morning, they buried Jimmy's body. Despite all of Madam Pomfrey's and Professor Snape's protests, Harry insisted on attending the early-morning funeral. He sat in his wheelchair, wrapped in blankets, staring at the boy in the coffin as if seeing him for the first time. His face was unreadable.
Hagrid placed the lid on the coffin, and lowered it into the grave. As he went to work, the rest of the little party started back toward the castle. Lupin and Pomfrey supported each other, then Snape, Ron and Hermione made their way up the path. Dumbledore pushed Harry's wheelchair, even though he didn't have to; the chair could have rolled along by itself.
Harry was lost in his thoughts as the chair began to roll slowly along the path back to the castle. Dumbledore stared straight ahead, watching for obstacles, and didn't see the slight flash of light in the bushes along the side of the path. But Harry did.
He turned his head quickly enough to catch the eye of Draco Malfoy. His face was blank, but his eyes were red and swollen. Startled, Draco froze, then looked Harry in the eye and nodded.
Harry nodded back, and the little party continued on its way as the night faded and the sun rose over the castle.