Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or any of its locations/characters.
5th May, 1998 AD - 12 Grimmauld Place, London
Harry stands on the bank of a colossal river. The water rushes downstream at a frightening rate, the tops of jagged rocks littering the surface. He wasn't sure what would happen first if he were to fall in. Would he be pulled under by the current and drown? Or would he be dashed to bloody pieces against the rocks?
He gazes over the river to the opposite bank and sees three figures standing there. The distance is too great to make out any details, but it seems to Harry as if they are arguing about something, constantly gesturing towards the river with their arms.
"Don't you see Harry? It isn't a pyramid, it's a loop."
He turns and stares at the man standing next to him. Average height, average build. Looked to be in his late fifties, wearing plain, black robes. A shaven head, with a closely-cropped, grey beard. A large scar runs from the corner of his mouth up to just below his eye on the left-hand side of his face. Two grey eyes, brimming with intelligence stare back at Harry.
The scene changes. Harry is sat in Dumbledore's office, except that it's Professor McGonagall sat on the other side of the desk. The man with the scar stands off to the side, staring absentmindedly out of a window as though utterly uninterested in the conversation about to happen.
"Mr Potter, having consulted with both my colleagues and the remaining governors, I've come to the conclusion that you are the only option for our vacant Defence Against the Dark Arts position. Congratulations on your new job!"
Harry opens his mouth to question the appointment, disbelieving that the school would be willing to hire someone who hasn't sat a single N.E.W.T. examination, but he can force no words out as he sits and stares at McGonagall's smiling visage.
The scene changes again, Harry is strolling around the shore of the Black Lake. Kingsley Shacklebolt walks beside him, the scarred man a few paces behind.
"Harry, the opinion polls speak for themselves. 88% of the public want you to succeed Thicknesse as Minister for Magic. I simply don't have the political capital necessary to push any meaningful reform through the Wizengamot. We don't have a choice here, it has to be you."
Just like before, Harry is quick to protest this proposition, keen to point out his complete and utter lack of suitability when it comes to Wizengamot politicking and Ministry bureaucracy. Yet again though, he cannot form the relevant words and simply nods his head, all whilst his mind is screaming for him to do the opposite.
The scene changes once more, Harry is sat by a bed in the Hogwarts Infirmary. He glances down at the bed's mystery occupant - they're covered head-to-toe in bandages. Molly Weasley sits next to him, the scarred man standing at the end of the bed.
"Oh Harry dear, I think it's so sweet you wanted to be here as Ginny is brought out of her coma. I'm already planning your wedding in my head you know."
The thought that his marriage and the rest of his life was being meticulously planned out by Molly Weasley horrifies hit, yet once more he sits there and nods silently, unable to voice his utter distaste at having his life dictated to him once more and shuddering internally as Molly squeezes his hand affectionately.
The scene changes one final time. Harry is back in the Great Hall, facing off against Voldemort. Ignotus's cloak is around his shoulders, shimmering in late afternoon sun streaming through the hall's windows. Cadmus's stone sits in a ring on his finger, glinting as he shifts on the balls of his feet. Antioch's wand is in his hand, its power thrumming through him waiting to be unleashed.
Harry and Voldemort raise their wands once again, but this time its different. Harry's arm almost buckles from the power he is unleashing. A blast of pure magic erupts from the tip of the Elder Wand, Voldemort's Killing Curse is simply absorbed into it. A spectrum of vivid colour floods the Great Hall as Harry's magic seems to tear apart reality itself before utterly obliterating Voldemort where he stood, not simply killing him but wiping him out of existence.
Harry looks around, expecting to see the jubilant faces of his friends, but only the scarred man is watching.
"Nobody can hide from Death forever, Harry. Not even its Master."
Harry sat up in his bed, swearing to himself as he realised he was drenched in sweat. This wasn't the first time he had woken up like this, in fact, he had dreamt a similar dream every night since the Battle of Hogwarts three days ago. He glanced at the watch on his bedside table - 6:13 am. He sighed, knowing that he wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep and stripped off his sweat-drenched pyjamas, put on a dressing gown and stumbled down to the kitchen to see if Kreacher had started on breakfast yet.
He and Kreacher had returned to London yesterday afternoon, no longer feeling he was obliged to hang around Hogwarts now Ron and Hermione had set off on their trip to Australia to retrieve Hermione's parents (and also to explore their new relationship, Harry suspected).
Though he had told those who had asked that he only wanted a couple of days to himself and he would return to the castle shortly, in reality, he had no idea of how long he planned to hole up here. He didn't see returning to 12 Grimmauld Place as a temporary reprieve, but rather a much-needed escape.
He despised the way people fell silent when he entered a room, gazing at him as if he were a particularly interesting exhibit in a zoo. His mind flashed back to the boa constrictor he had accidentally liberated all those years ago, watching as the snake slithered away at the first sign of freedom. Will I ever have a chance of real freedom? Or is hiding away in Grimmauld Place simply exchanging one prison for another?
"Master has been dreaming again," remarked Kreacher as Harry slumped down into one of the chairs surrounding the kitchen table. With a snap of the house-elf's gnarled fingers, a steaming cup of black coffee, a warm bowl of porridge and a small vial of nutrient potion prescribed by Madam Pomfrey appeared in front of him.
Harry chose to ignore Kreacher's mutterings and began eating, thinking back on the events of the last three days as he did so.
The jubilation and sheer relief he had felt immediately after killing Voldemort had quickly given way to grief when he realised just how many had died on the side of the light. The deaths of Tonks, Remus, Fred and Colin Creevey had hitten him particularly hard.
He had wanted to simply find a secluded spot in the castle and let all his emotions fly out, sobbing out his grief and taking out his anger on some innocent pieces of furniture. Yet he had been unable to, hardly being left alone for a single minute with either Hermione or Ron (presumably on Hermione's orders) constantly shadowing him when he managed to slip away from the crowds of the Great Hall or Infirmary. Did they really think him to be so weak that he couldn't be trusted to spend time on his own without damaging himself?
For a couple of days, it seemed likely that Ginny's name would join the long list of the dead, but long hours of intensive magical surgery from Madam Pomfrey had managed to stabilise her. She had been transferred to St. Mungo's yesterday morning where she would remain in a magically-induced coma whilst healers essentially regrew the majority of her internal organs. It was a process estimated to take several weeks, and even after this, it was suggested that she would need to send many months visiting with a Mind Healer before she was well enough to be reintegrated into everyday life.
He had felt strangely numb when he first learnt of Ginny's injuries. It seemed that the months he had spent away from her on the hunt for Voldemort's Horcruxes had slowly eroded away his feelings for her; memories of the lazy afternoons they had spent together by the Black Lake seemed bizarre and unreal. The Harry Potter that had dated Ginny at the end of his sixth year was gone, destroyed by the war and the changed man that came out the other side had no desire to restart their romantic relationship as if nothing had happened.
Considering this, Ginny's injuries had been both a blessing and a curse: a blessing in the sense that whilst she was unconscious Harry could put off having an incredibly awkward conversation about their relationship with her; and a curse because he wasn't sure how he could convince her he didn't want to begin dating again for reasons other than her potentially life-changing injuries. He couldn't think of a way to break the news to her without the entire Weasley family hating him, and he wasn't entirely convinced that he didn't deserve their ire. What I need to do is cruel, but would it not be crueller to continue a relationship built on a fundamental lie?
He had spent a few hours sitting by her bed on the first day, making idle conversation with various members of her family. Another positive of Ginny's condition was that it seemed to distract the Weasley family from mourning Fred's death. Crushed to death by a piece of falling masonry, Fred was due to be buried in the orchard behind the Burrow - as per Weasley family tradition - early next week. Harry had walked through the orchard several times over the years, never realising that each fruit tree had been planted directly over the grave of a family member in lieu of a tombstone. Molly had told him that Fred would be laid to rest next to Fabian and Gideon Prewett, her two younger brothers that had been killed in a Death Eater ambush lead by Antonin Dolohov during the first war.
Harry still hadn't decided whether he was going to attend the funerals of the various friends that had died. He hated the thought of showing up and instantly becoming the centre of attention, all eyes on him as he tried to grieve for those he had lost. Perhaps he should attend under his cloak he mused. Or perhaps he just shouldn't go at all and visit their graves later when he could have some solitude.
He wondered to himself whether he truly didn't want to distract attention away from the deceased, or was he just looking for further excuses not to confront those that wanted to speak to him. This line of thought quickly brought him back to the contents of the dreams of the last few nights. They were always similar, a succession of scenes where Harry was forced to watch on silently as he had various responsibilities thrust upon him, never being able to argue or protest the decisions. A job at Hogwarts, being voted in as Minister, marrying Ginny, fighting crime as the face of the new Auror Department, Andromeda informing him that it was his responsibility to raise Teddy.
How he loathed that word - responsibility. Had he not played his part already? His entire life had been carefully orchestrated by Dumbledore, all leading up to Voldemort's demise. Now he had slain the demon, but it still seemed to him as if people still expected him to save the day. What do I know about politics? Or marking essays? Or raising children?
He realised that some of his fears were probably unfounded. No one had come up to him to offer him a job or thrust a bawling, baby metamorphmagus into his arms. Yet he couldn't seem to shake the feeling that people still had plans for him, schemes of their own that they couldn't carry out unless he was forced into playing a certain role.
He had overheard some of the excruciating long discussions Kingsley had been holding these last few days as he scrambled to cobble together some form of working government. He had quickly appointed Arthur and Percy Weasley as his Senior and Junior Undersecretaries respectively, alongside a few other trusted ministry officials that had survived the war. They now had the extremely difficult task of not only rebuilding a country that had suffered its second civil war in as many decades, but also wiping out centuries worth of prejudice and social inequality, something the Fudge administration had promised and failed to do. He suspected that sooner, rather than later, Kingsley would seek him out to make the same request Scrimgeour had at the beginning of his administration, wanting him to become some sort of poster boy for the Ministry. He was probably less keen on the idea now than he was when Scrimgeour asked him at the Burrow - was it really that hard to run a country without having his face plastered all over the Ministry?
He had also seen the calculating looks directed at him by both Professor McGonagall and newly-appointed Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Gawain Robards. These looks had only grown more longing once it had been revealed by Neville Longbottom that the student resistance inside the castle against Amycus and Alecto Carrow's tyranny had been lead and coordinated by Dumbledore's Army, a group founded and trained by Harry Potter himself.
Harry pushed away his empty bowl, lent back in his chair and sighed. It was obvious that the majority of his dreams were simply his anxieties about the future manifesting themselves, but the meaning of the final part of each dream eluded him.
Rather than a seeming insight into the future, each dream ended with a scene from Harry's life - the confrontation with Professor Quirrell, facing off against Slytherin's basilisk, duelling Voldemort in the graveyard, fighting Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries.
The one difference in each of these situations was that unlike what had actually occurred, in his dreams he was Master of Death, armed with all three of the Deathly Hallows. With these powerful tools to aid him, the dreams played out rather differently than what had happened in reality.
Rather than rolling around clawing at Professor Quirrell's burning face like eleven-year-old Harry had, Dream-Harry had slipped Ignotus's cloak on before passing through the enchanted flames, crept up behind the possessed professor and hit him squarely in the back with a blasting curse that had turned the top half of Quirrell's body into a bloody smear, slowly dripping down the front of the Mirror of Erised.
Upon entering the Chamber of Secrets, Dream-Harry had summoned a shade of Salazar Slytherin using Cadmus's stone to distract the basilisk, before impaling the vast beast on a host of conjured, stone spikes rising from the floor.
When faced off against a newly-resurrected Voldemort in the Little Hangleton graveyard, Dream-Harry simply raised Antioch's wand and unleashed hell. Voldemort was forced to watch on in dismay as every Death Eater that had answered his summons was cut down, most permanently, before Dream-Harry turned the wand on him and a fierce duel broke out with Dream-Harry slowly forcing Voldemort backwards until his back was up against the tombstone of his late father. Once there, Dream-Harry bound Voldemort to the tombstone before forcing him to watch as each of his Horcruxes was destroyed before his eyes, and finally as Dream-Harry cast a Killing Curse at him.
Harry was distinctly unsure what these parts of his dreams were trying to tell him, not to mention the new inclusion in last nights dream - the scene by the river. Harry was certain he had never seen that river before, nor the man that had seemed to follow him from scene to scene. He couldn't make any sense of what the scarred man had said which just added to his frustration.
Harry sighed again as he stood up, deciding to heed Dumbledore's advice and not dwell on his dreams. He actually planned to leave the house today - not to see anyone, but an improvement nevertheless. He wanted to revisit the graves of his parents, this time not polyjuiced to look like a random muggle and without having to constantly look over his shoulder for Death Eaters.
And so Harry trudged back upstairs to take a shower, mentally running through a checklist in his head of the things he wanted to take with him to Godric's Hollow.
Thanks for reading!
Next chapter: Godric's Hollow