Chapter 10: Nightmares and Chocolate
I meant to have this up days ago, in time for Christmas. I procrastinated, sorry! Supernatural knocked on my door and said "dad went on a hunting trip, and he hasn't been home in a few days". Now I'm already on season 3, the pagan god Christmas special. Felix out~
the sun was bright and the breeze was wonderful. Harry sat in a tree next to a lake, wearing swim trunks. He looked around, seeing hogwarts. He smiled. It was as magnificent in summer as in winter.
"Harry!" He heard. He looked down. A man who looked strikingly like him was waving at him from the water.
"Join us, the water's great!" There was a woman next to him, hair like fire, eyes like emeralds. These were his parents! There were others, a man with grey eyes and shaggy black hair, and another man with amber eyes and honey blonde hair. All smiling, calling for him. He stood and made his way through the tree limbs to stand at the end of one suspiciously perfect for use as a diving board.
Draco's eyes snapped open. He couldn't tell what woke him up, but then the sound came again. A creak on the stairs. He slid out of bed and opened the door.
Harry was walking up the stairs.
"Harry?" He said, wiping the sleep from his eyes. He kept walking. Draco narrowed his eyes in confusion. What...? He followed him.
"Harry?"
He disappeared around a corner.
Harry hesitated. Something about this wasn't right. Wasn't he with the Weasleys? How was he here? He backed up a bit, beginning to lose his footing on the branch.
Draco watched him walk up another staircase. It creaked and groaned, and Harry seemed to almost slip at one point.
"Harry, come join us, darling!" The red haired woman grinned and called up to him. It would be so easy to just jump in to them, join his family. He creeped to the edge of the limb again.
Draco saw Harry at the top of the staircase. He was a bit behind him. He had gotten to the attic door. Draco thought Harry was going to smack into it until there was an odd sort of light and it swung inward slowly. Draco rushed up the rest of the way in time to see the window opening and Harry climbing up onto the sill.
"No!"
Harry stopped again. But what about Draco, and Horace, and his new friends? What about his godfather, who was looking for him? He couldn't leave them behind.
Suddenly the scene morphed. His father's face changed into slitted red eyes and pale skin, snakelike.
"Jump, boy!" It hissed. Harry tried to move backwards, but suddenly there was a snake, large and menacing. It snapped at his ankles and he stumbled, falling onto the branch. He grabbed tight, trying not to fall. It lunged again.
Draco raced forward and pulled Harry off of the sill.
"Harry!" He yelled. His eyes snapped open.
"Draco?" He said. He looked so scared. He grabbed onto the blonde.
Mrs. Weasley appeared on the stairs, and a light clicked on. There were a few curious ginger heads peeking over her shoulder.
"What's going on?!"
Harry sipped his milk slowly.
"And then suddenly, his face changed, and he was hideous. He had these red eyes, and his nose was gone, and there was this snake trying to get me to fall... was I really about to dive out of a window?"
The whole family plus Horace, Draco and Harry were gathered around the table. Everyone had been woken by Draco's yelling. They'd brought a very shaken Harry downstairs, wrapped him in a blanket, and Mrs. Weasley had immediately made him coffee and set a plate of biscuits in front of him.
"This isn't the first time a freak accident like this happened, Molly" Horace said. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say someone was trying to kill our Harry here."
"Well what's the other option? Harry's subconscious trying to off him? Something was opening the doors and the window for him, and Harry didn't have his wand. He's far past the age for accidental magic, and that was so... concentrated. It just opened for him, he didn't run into them first or anything."
Mr. Weasley sighed. "Look, boys, we know this looks bad, but at least he's safe, yes?"
Suddenly the door opened and a man walked in.
"What's going on?" The man asked. It was the man from Harry's dream, the one with the blonde hair and amber eyes. But he looked so tired, haggard. He looked like he'd known pain in his life.
"Lupin, you're back!" That was the twins.
"Who's this?" Lupin asked. He was staring at Harry.
"This is Harry. Harry dear, this is Remus Lupin."
Harry smiled softly. "Um, hullo" he said. He felt a little awkward and shy, the way the man was staring at him.
"It can't be" Lupin whispered.
"It is" Draco said.
"He must be, if someone's trying to kill the poor thing" one of the twins said. Harry thought it might be George.
"Yeah, he almost took a swan dove outta the attic window." That was the other one. No, maybe that one was George...
Remus's eyes widened. "Bloody hell" he whispered. He looked stricken, like he hadn't meant for that to be said out loud. He reached in his pocket and pulled out a chocolate bar, handing it to Harry.
"You look pale, here." Harry looked confused, but he took the bar all the same, not wanting to seem rude. He opened it and broke off a small piece, popping it into his mouth. He'd already had quite a few of Mrs. Weasley's biscuits.
"So, you think you're Harry Potter?" The Man asked, taking a seat at the table.
Harry looked down. "Well, I don't know what to think, really. I might be, but that's not for me to say, really. I don remember if I am or not, but it's feeling more real by the second."
They proceeded to tell Remus the whole story, start to finish.