Hello. = Normal Writing, Writers Perspective

"Hello." = Normal Speaking

'Hello' = Quotes from Story

"Hello." = Different Languages

'Hello.' = Actual Thinking

Hello = Special Words

Chapter Five
Nightmares

"There's nothing you can ever do to lose my love.
I will protect you until you die, and after your death I will still protect you.
I am stronger than Depression and I am braver than Loneliness
and nothing will ever exhaust me."

- Elizabeth Gilber, Eat, Pray, Love -

Listening to the One Piece OST Mother Sea (First Part) [Extended Version] helped writing this.

Somehow he had a déjà-vu as he awoke slowly, of course he laid there face first.

He was surrounded by darkness, not sure were he was either. His cheek was rather comfortable resting on something soft, blinking sluggishly he waited till his eyes adjusted. Harry had no feeling of time or space, he did not know how long he had been out or how he had survived with broken bones and deep wounds.

All he remembered was that he had exploded Voldemort's head, then killed his snake as well as some of his followers in the ensuing battle. It had all gone so freakishly fast. At that time he had been running purely on adrenalin as a pounding headache plagued him along the way. Luckily that headache was now gone, in fact there was not a thing that hurt anymore.

Confused by that fact he tried to concentrate on another memory of that event, trying to think of how much time had passed in the progress.

Sadly he failed miserably.

"You said he will be fine!" Came a low, aggressive rumble from somewhere. It sounded to Harry as if whoever it was, was standing behind a door. Almost reminded him of the time he had spent in the cupboard under the stairs when he had lived with the Dursley's.

"My ass is fine", growled another voice aggravated. "Took me a bloody week to get him this stable."

Apparently whoever it was was pissed, which did nothing to sooth Harry's agitated nerves. What was happening? Where was he? He wanted to squirm, wanted to shout, but all he could do was lay there in silence.

Unmoving.

Confusion soon rooted itself in his head. It spread through his body until it nestled in his every limb, every organ and every corner of his being.

Why could he not move?

Why could he not remember more?

What was wrong with him?

Harry felt himself shaking, but at the same time he was not shaking at all. Frantic voices sounded through that thick door but he could not understand their words. Was he in a room? He could still feel something soft on his cheek and underneath his body. Obviously he was lying somewhere.

But where?

Soon the Questions filled his head, swirling; turning into a whirlwind together with thoughts, emotions, perceptions. Painful throbbing began again, soon turning into a full blown headache. He was so confused, so hurt. Soon there were other memories that were definitely not his own, one showed a young man with dark brown hair and calculating eyes. Another showed twinkling blue eyes on a child's face. Riddle. Dumbledore.

Names filled his head, scenes he did not life through and then again did so.

His past filled in before his eyes.

Friends.

Family.

Hurt.

Currently he was so simpleminded and confused it hurt himself. In an ironic thought, which practically flew by, he pictured Dudley feeling like this constantly.

Out of nowhere a thought made it's way from the confusion, which befuddled him even more. How was it that he held the memories of Lord Voldemort and Albus Dumbledore when he only had part of their soul? Were memories not supposed to be in the brain? He did not understand much of that, which the Muggles had discovered over the past years and now all those new questions did was confounding him even more.

"When will he wake up?" Was questioned on the other side of the door, by a familiar voice. But he could not pinpoint who exactly it was. Lying there, hurt and confused Harry wanted to cry. He had thought after such a long time he had been out of tears, but apparently that was not the case as he felt something moist tickled the bridge of his nose.

"Soon", came the reply, "he has been fading in and out of consciousness for a while now." Then there was silence and all he could do was wait while his headache subsided little by little until his memories started to become clear. Then darkness took over before showing him a scene.

Blood.

Everywhere.

Everywhere was blood. He could feel it on his skin; his robes were plunged in deep red and he could feel something else, something a little thicker splosh onto his cheek right underneath his eye. Starring horrified at the scene. It was a exploding head. A familiar exploding head, who's sick pale body was covered in a smokey black gown.

Blood.

All over the place.

The scene returned multiple times after it had faded to darkness and Harry had witnessed the other death's caused by his hand. The innards of some Death Eaters spread across Hogwarts grounds, his school mates killed, maimed by those he killed with gruesome Jinxes, Hexes and whatever else he had in his arsenal. A lot of them had a slitted throat from various Diffindo's thrown their way. Another group was smashed by falling rocks he had levitated over their unsuspecting heads in a bout of anger.

Death.

He had killed.

The-boy-who-lived, defender of the light, was a murderer.

As the realization dawned on him and he began to sense something again outside of his confused state. Wetness traveled across his face, this time in stout masses.

Why?

So many lives lost, so many that could have lived happily-ever-after. Some of them he had not known well, others were his friends, and some he did not even know by name. Poor Neville, lying on the ground, lifeless eyes staring up into nothingness. Molly bowing over the body of Percy, clinging to him as if he was a lifeline, crying. Harry made out something in the distance, behind the door. It sounded like sobbing, slowly turning bitter and anguished. Weeping reached his ears and he wondered who it was that was crying.

"He is waking." That voice again.

His vision changed slowly from ever-lasting blackness to a long tunnel with light at the end. Said light sped up to him until it blinded his sore, wet eyes. 'Wet... eyes?' His mind wondered, he tried to move and truly: There his hand was coming towards his face, sluggish and almost limb, as if asleep for a long time. The black haired teen had a hard time controlling his limb and as such it slapped into his face a little hard.

There. Wetness.

Harry gazed at his hand, not noticing his surroundings. He kept staring at his tear coated fingers, why was he crying? For his enemies? For the loss of his friends, even before the last battle? For him, killing in defense of innocent peoples lives as well as his own? He still was so confused.

"Harry?" Came a soft, secondary voice from the off, as if afraid to say something. The teenager knew that voice. Sirius? Apparently he had said that out loud, for he felt a presence coming towards his lying form. Just then he realized that he was lying on his belly, right half of his face buried in a soft pillow.

Where was he?

"Harry", now his godfather stood above him in all his black-misty glory, glowing red eyes looking worried down at him, "I know you have many questions and I will answer them soon, but you need to drink some healing potions, alright?" Question came to mind why they had not just spelled inside of his belly, like Madame Pomfrey had done sometimes. Then again he had to swallow a lot of her potions too, because she could not spell everything into him at once. Figuring that was the case here too he nodded at Padfoot, whom he trusted above all else.

Seemingly relieved the black mist looked at another person, this one behind Harry. Who ever it was walked around the bed and into his field of vision.

A man of about the same height as his godfather stood there, with cropped red-brown hair and serene dark hazel eyes. Age wise the boy would say he was in his sixties. Harry felt as if he knew this man, whom he certainly never had met before. The man was clad in simple Muggle fashion, namely a jeans and a green shirt that was a bit to big for his slender frame. Who was this? Luckily the two others seemed to have picked on on the unspoken question, as the serene looking guy introduced himself.

"My name is Uther Prewett, I am a Healer from St. Mungo's Hospital." Harry starred at the man that seemed to be related to Molly Weasley. His emerald eyes narrowed at him suspiciously.

"Don't fret, he is trustworthy." Said Sirius, who was standing there as if it was an every day occurrence to be black mist. His godfather had good instincts, but was this truly a good choice? For Harry's taste he still was too close to the Weasley's for comfort. An unknown variable.

The old dog sighed heavily.

"I know what's in that head of yours, but believe me, Uther is trustworthy. He despises Molly and everything she has done." A humorless chuckle escaped the red eyed one. "Hell, he didn't even flinch when I practically abducted him from his own bedroom."

Harry, who did not have much choice in the matter right now just nodded. Still trusting his godfather he took the four flasks that were handed him and drank them slowly, of course with the help of the man, as the boy still could not move properly.

"They are healing potions, one to strengthen your bones, one to heal the least wounds, one for the headache and one for calmness. This", he pulled out a fifth bottle with familiar violet liquid inside, "is a Dreamless Sleep Potion. You will take it after you have had your meal, which is already prepared on your bedside table." Truly, right there stood a bowl of chicken soup, a glass of water and half a bun.

"After that you need to be on a strict vitamin and vitality potion diet which are in that trunk over there", he waved over to a wall with the single door to this room. "Take one potion each, after every meal Mr. Potter. You are heavily malnourished. My diagnostic charms showed that you should have been at least fifty pounds heavier and stand at least at six feet and three inches tall", he swished his hand around in a disregarding manner, "not this mangy five foot five."

What?

"Not to mention your muscle mass, or those ugly blocks on you. Sadly I can not heal those blocks, as they are far to embedded into you. God's above, what has Poppy been doing all these years?" By now the red-brown haired man raged around, apparently there was more wrong with him, aside from being cursed, the-boy-who-lived and so on and so forth. After a while Uther Prewett calmed down enough to give Harry and Sirius a last speech about his distant cousin, Molly Weasley, who apparently had been an eyesore for him after robbing Uther off his rights to the Head of House Prewett.

"Be careful around her, she is one conniving bitch. A wonder she was placed into Gryffindor, should have been a Slytherin all along." With that and the promise he would not betray them, which would not be good for his career as a Healer, the old man vanished.

Afterward Harry ate his soup and bread, gulping down a bit of water, then the Dreamless Sleep potion. A short while later the-boy-who-lived found himself again in nightmares.

He again saw Voldemort's head exploding, blood, gore, slitted throats, squashed humans.

With a start he awoke, shooting right out of his bedsheets. How was it possible to still dream if he had taken a Dreamless Sleep potion? He was hurt and confused again, luckily this time not bodily. Again there were tears streaming down his face, dripping onto his naked upper body. Why was he haunted by these dreams?

"Harry?" Asked his godfather, materializing next to him in a sitting position, a worried frown on his face. With teary eyes he stared at the Animagus, all he wanted right now was clarity on so many things.

"Am I a murderer?" He asked in a grieve stricken voice, to witch the shade looked perplex at first, but then he shook his head. "No. You are a defender. A Protector. All you wanted was to protect the wounded, defend the fallen and end the snakes idiocy once and for all." A black, misty hand reached forward and surprised them both when he could actually be touched. Thumbing away the tears on his godchild's face the possessing being reassured him that he had been in the right to kill.

"Killing is not murdering, Harry.
To Kill is to battle, it solves the purpose of ending one live to defend and protect another. Murder is in cold blood, it solves no true purpose of life, it only ends without a sense. All murder does, is giving sick bastards the satisfaction of unjustified, unnatural greatness. You. Are. No. Murderer."

The sincerity in his godfathers red eyes smashed into him with the speed of the Knight Bus. Was he truly no murderer? But he had killed human beings and other living things. But it had been in defense of innocent life, defenseless people, had it not? 'Of course.' He answered his own question, but it was still hard to take.

"Why did the Dreamless Sleep not work?" He sobbed pathetically, trying to reign in his emotions. Sirius shrugged. "It probably was not a high enough dosage. Uther could not give a higher dose - it could have interfered with the others that are still working on your body." Logically. Then again he was still confused and he still hurt over the loss of his friends. Why did this happen to him? Why would they throw away so many years of friendship? Was it due to that wretched Jinx? The black hand wandered to his shoulder and rested there comfortingly.

"Sleep, Harry. In the morning we can go over everything, or we can leave it for a while. Whatever you prefer, I am with you." The last words were said with a lot of concern. "Good night, Ray." Yawned the black mist, slurring the name of his godchild before lying down next to him, who too felt sleep claiming him slowly.

A few hours later found Harry wide awake in the kitchen of Number 12 Grimmauld Place with a serious shade and a grumpy house-elf. Apparently his godfather had taken over his body and Apparated all over England, just to drop him in the Black Ancestral Home. Kreacher, who was now shooting death glares at the misty form of his former Master, had then popped inside and the two - after arguing for an hour - had come to the conclusion that both wanted Harry save. So the old elf reenacted some Black-Family protections that had been around the House for longer than the elf lived there, just to keep out everybody that was deemed a threat.

Four day's ago Kreacher had seen Hermione, Ron and a few surviving Order members trying to come inside, only for the protections to take effect and sending a few of them straight to St Mungo's. When Harry had not awoken after three day's Sirius, who apparently was now able to become semi-solid, had vanished for a few hours, only to turn up again with Uther Prewett, who then proceeded to heal Harry, who's mind had shut itself off from anything.

A few hours later and the boy-who-lived would have been the-boy-who-was-dead. Luckily the old Healer had been able to help the teenager though it had taken a lot out of the old man to rebuild a bit of Harry's mind scape, which had come crashing down on him through all the new memories he had received. Apparently he now needed to absolutely study Occlumency before doing anything else.

His mind had been in chaos, everything twisting, turning and mixing inside, before Uther had been able to calm him down enough to handle everything. Runic work, a lot of Legilimency and tons of potions later and the work was done. He had cemented a calm base inside Harry's mind, which the teen could return to, if his memories chose to come out all at once. Sadly now all of his thoughts and memories were so unprotected (the natural mind protection that everybody had had been destroyed, after all) Sirius only needed to stare into his eyes to read them all.

Not what they needed right now. So the elf and his godfather had taken the black haired teen, sat him down and plopped a lot of books in front of him just thirteen minutes ago. Which left the old elf frowning heavily due to Harry's condition.

"And I need to read them?" He asked for the tenth time in a row.

"If you want for the whole world to know everything inside your head, no. But if you wish to keep these thoughts save and sound, then yes, you do." Came the nonchalant reply, making Harry groan into his toast.

"Is there no easier way?" Pleaded he, emerald eyes as large as a kicked puppies.

"Well", hesitated Sirius, while munching on something that looked remotely like a cooked ghoul's arm, "I could teach you the basics, thought I never was really good at them. My family is one of those that gets the Occlumentic protection through our inherited magic." Harry just stared blankly at the black being until he nodded slowly, with narrowed eyes.

"Okay. But you need to train too." At the crestfallen look he elaborated. "Because, if you can solidify others might be able to get into your head.", then he smirked, "besides: It is easier if we learn together."

And so began the torturous sessions of teaching Harry the foundations of mind protection.

Truth to be told it was rather interesting to get to know what his godfather knew. It was refreshing to sit and talk about the theory of building up a house instead of being attacked constantly by a teacher he did not like. Of course Sirius compared it with the planning and execution of pranks, but it was fun none the less.

Sadly Harry was no prodigy in the mind arts and his head began to hurt again after only two hours of talking. But by then he had somewhat of a gust of it. With that he took a pain potion from the trunk provided by the Healer and mad himself comfortable on a couch in one of the many rooms the house had.

Later that day Kreacher cracked into the room Harry stayed in and placed a tablet with something to eat, namely a bowl of chicken soup, onto a nearby desk. Meanwhile Harry was sleeping a uncomfortable dream again, which woke him up a few minutes after the elf vanished again.

'Bloody Nightmares', he cursed in his head, while rubbing his bleary eyes, which then fell onto the beautiful sign of a hot bowl filled with soup. Practically with stars in his eyes the young man grabbed the bowl and ate his meal, afterward drinking his potions that stood on the same silver plate.

Now with a full belly and a not so prominent headache he stretched his sour body a little, before deciding to leave the lounge, heading for the kitchen with the silver tablet. Inside sat Sirius, his head buried unusually inside a books pages. It seemed as if his godfather truly took his words to heart about learning together. Harry put the plate onto the kitchenette where Kreacher, who was thanking him profusely, took care of it.

"Padfoot."

He greeted his family member, who hummed a greeting in return.

"Snuffles."

Again nothing but a hum.

"Sirius."

Another hum, Harry sighed and knocked on the book as if it was a door. Humorously the black mist lowered the book and stared at his godchild witty owlishly. However he pulled that look of, it was enough to make Harry chuckle a little.

"Harry, I know you have been having nightmares." The entity stated in sympathy after his godson stopped laughing. "And I know that everything we have learned from... him is a bit much. On top of that you have the memories of two old men inside your head that are currently only subsided because of the anchoring Uther did to you. But we need to sort this through. I said I am with you and that is true.

I am with you, from here till the end of the world. No. Even further than that. I lost James and Lily, got betrayed by Peter, my family hated me and Remus is now dead too. Okay, maybe I should be in the afterlife too, but I am not. And that is good." Sirius took a deep breath and continued his rant, still gesturing here and there with his hands to underline what he said.

"You lost Remus, Ron, Tonks, Hermione. Hell, you lost everyone and more. But. You are not alone. And if what he said is true we might be able to change it all." A little hope swung in that tone.

"We might not know when or how it happens, but we need to prepare. Even if it's not true we still have those under Dumbledore's thumb on our asses and we have to be prepared for them too. Even if I have a new form and what else I am currently missing, we still need to be ready for anything we can think of." A short pause, then: "But we need to begin at the beginning. There is no use in taking the easy road. That road would lead us to destruction, just like it lead me to prison when I tried avenging your parents by finding Peter."

"So we need to first and foremost build up our minds defenses." Concluded Harry, which was rather important to both of them if they truly had so many people against them. Sirius nodded his agreement and conducted. "We should make a list. Then we need to sort those points on the list and plan them, so we have structure to anything we do."

Harry nodded, standing up to search for parchment.

"Oh... and, Harry?" Said Sirius, still sitting on the chair, his godson turned around with a questioning look on his tired face. "No matter what, we're in this together."

Wow.
That was not planned. It just came over me and wanted to be.

A word of warning: Sirius and Harry are Family in this Fanfiction. There will be no slash between the two. No matter how fluffy a scene becomes. Or at least not without at least one woman involved... then again that would be a threesome... hehehe. Nope. No slash for them two.

Anybody forgot the title song to this Fanfiction? It does have a meaning to the fic, you know. Have you listened to it? May not be everybody's taste, but it get's the point across, hehe :3

By the way, I'm posting this a day prior, 'cause I'll be over in Netherlands for the next week :3

~Berry