A/N: I've really enjoyed the reviews. Everything's been really positive so thanks for that. After this chapter, the next thing I'll upload will be chapter one of Albus' story, it should be up tomorrow if my proofreader gets it back to me in time. Anyway, about this chapter, it was really fun to write and it's probably one of my favorite in the entire book. So I hope you enjoy it.
DISCLAIMER: I still don't own Harry Potter.
Harry awoke with a strange feeling, it was completely dark in his bedroom as usual, the only light coming from the alarm clock that faced the opposite direction from where he and Ginny slept. Any direct light could keep Ginny awake for hours. He waited for his eyes to adjust, but they didn't. It took him longer than he would've liked before he realized what was happening. The almost impenetrable darkness he had seen twice before, had returned.
He groped for his glasses on the bedside table, found them, and realized they were useless. He searched for his wand also, but found it was missing. He reached for Ginny to wake her, and his heart dropped. She was gone also. He got up and felt along the wall for his closet. He reached in and felt for the box at the bottom that held an extra wand. He pulled it from the box and cast a silent Lumos, it didn't light up more than a few feet in front of him, but at least he wouldn't run into any walls.
He moved silently through his house, checking Lily's room as he walked by. She was sound asleep, with her new dog Strike sitting at the foot of the bed, fully alert. Harry could see him perfectly, which was strange considering everything else looked like he was seeing it through someone else's glasses. He moved on, down the stairs to the Kitchen, but what he saw there nearly made him scream. Ginny was sitting in her desk chair, wands in both hands. He assumed one of them had to be his missing one. What was worse, there was a figure standing directly behind her. No, he thought, not standing, floating. He raised his wand at the figure, and cast a stunner.
The figure didn't make a move, the red light of his spell was travelling toward it and Harry was sure it would hit. He didn't, however, count on Ginny. She moved in front of the stunner and with a flick of her wand, blocked it while sending a flash of green light at Harry with his own wand. Harry ducked behind the wall, narrowly dodging the killing curse. His instincts kicked in, and he fired back, throwing stunning and disarming spells as quickly as he could while dodging unforgivables fired from his wife. He got a better look at the figure behind Ginny, what he saw made him cringe. The figure looked almost exactly like a dementor. It was different, though, in one way. It had a face, his face.
After the initial shock of seeing his face on a Dementor, Harry had an idea. Before he could execute his plan, though, he heard small footsteps on the stairs. Lily, Harry thought, all the noise must have woken her up. He cursed under his breath before jumping across the doorway to get to the stairs, as he flew through the air, he aimed a stunner at his wife, it met the green light of her killing curse, which slowed for a moment, before continuing, straight at his chest.
Everything seemed to move in slow motion as Harry watched the green light coming directly for him. He'd been in this situation before, too many times. This time, however, he knew that if it hit him he wouldn't be protected, or come back. Harry put his wand up to cast a shield, knowing it wouldn't save him, but still not able to stop himself, before a streak of white fur jumped between himself and the curse. Harry thought he must already be dead, or going crazy as he watched what happened next. The pup caught the green light as it would a tennis ball, and threw it into the wall. It then barked, and a white light, much like a patronus, came from its mouth, lighting up the entire house and pushing the figure behind Ginny back into the wall. As Harry watched, it smiled at him, and disappeared with an audible pop.
Harry, still clutching his wand, moved toward his wife, who was passed out on the floor. He took the wands from her hands before shaking her awake. "Ginny, wake up. Gin." He shook her a little harder, and she stirred.
"Harry?" She said groggily, "What am I doing on the floor?" She attempted to sit up, but she was shaking too much and Harry picked her up and moved her to the couch. "What the hell happened here?" She asked, noticing the state of the entire first floor.
"You did," Harry laughed, "You know, I never thought I'd prefer your bat-bogey curse to anything."
"Harry, what did I do?" Ginny asked, looking more like the girl he'd seen during his second year in the Chamber of Secrets than she ever had since then.
"Nothing, Gin. It wasn't you." Just then, the fireplace, which had been extinguished during the fight, lit up green and a parade of Weasleys came through, wands drawn. One by one they realized the fight was over and moved to where Harry, Ginny, and Lily were sitting.
"What in the name of Merlin happened here?" Arthur Weasley asked, looking at the destroyed living room. Harry waited until people stopped arriving, and launched into telling the entire story. He noted the looks of disbelief when he told them the part about Lily's dog. When he finished the story, Ron was the first to speak.
"What the hell was it? The thing controlling Ginny." He asked, and Harry explained what he saw, leaving out the part that the face on it was his. He would tell Ron, Ginny, and Hermoine about that part later. After he finished Ron spoke again, "Well I guess you're lucky this little guy was there." The pup had jumped into Ron's lap and was sleeping soundly. "What's his name again?"
"Strike." Harry said, "Lily says he looks like a lightning bolt when he runs." He laughed out loud during the last part, rubbing his forehead.
"Well, in any case, we need to put more protection on this place. You might not get so lucky next time." Arthur said, pulling out his wand. "Fidelius charms need to be on our houses, all of them." In the next few hours, they put the charms on all of the houses in the Weasley and Potter families. Harry was secret keeper for Ron and Hermoine, Teddy, and the Burrow. Ron was his. Ginny was still quite shaken when her family left over an hour later, Harry had given her chocolate, which had helped, but he could tell she was on the verge of tears for most of the night.
It was only Harry, Ron, Hermoine, and Ginny left in the Potter house when Ginny finally spoke, in a quiet voice, her hands shaking. "I could've.." Her voice failed her momentarily "I could've killed you." She said, finally letting the tears she'd been holding in most of the night fall.
Harry smiled at her, pulling her into his arms. "In case you haven't noticed, Gin, I'm not an easy man to kill." She laughed between sobs, into his shoulder.
Ron and Hermoine, who had been respectfully quiet during their exchange, finally spoke up. "What were you leaving out earlier?" Hermoine asked, looking at Harry knowingly.
"You could tell?" Harry asked, surprised.
"C'mon mate, we've been around you long enough to know when you're not telling us everything. Now spill." Ron said.
"Alright then, the dementor with a face that I saw, its face was mine." Harry said. Ron and Hermoine gasped at the revelation.
"What does that mean?" Hermoine asked.
"I was hoping you could tell me, I've never seen anything like it before." Harry replied. "You haven't read about that ever happening before, have you?"
"I think one thing is certain, what you saw was not a dementor." Hermoine said, "Could it have been a mixed breed?" The thought of a dementor mating with anything made Harry's stomach turn.
"Actually, I don't want to think about it tonight," Harry said, "We should just go to bed and think on it more after I talk to the headmaster's portraits tomorrow."
"Agreed," Hermoine said, reaching into her pockets, "take these coins, they're like our old DA ones, just press the top and it will call us to you." She handed each of them a blank silver coin. Harry turned his over and noticed a small lighting strike on the side.
Harry watched his two friends leave through the fireplace and then turned to his wife, he had fallen asleep on the couch already. He picked her up gently and carried her up the stairs, Lily was standing in her doorway, clutching an extendable ear. Harry put his finger to his mouth, telling her silently to hold her questions. He walked to his room and placed Ginny on the bed, covering her with a quilt that Molly made for them they year before, before walking back to Lily's room and sitting on the foot of her bed.
"Eavesdropping? I thought I taught you better than that," Harry said jokingly. "You must have so many questions."
"Why did that thing in the kitchen smile at you?" Lily asked, "Wasn't you fighting it?"
"And losing," Harry said, "I've learned that a lot of the most evil witches and wizards smile at the oddest times, it's like they enjoy causing pain, even when there's no reason for it." Harry paused for a moment before deciding to tell her the story of how Bellatrix died. He finished the story by saying, "So you see, Bellatrix was too busy enjoying the pain she was causing Molly by threatening her children, to realize that Molly was beating her. That's why we'll always win, we fight because it's right, not because we enjoy it. We fight because we must, not because we want to. And most of all, we fight to protect each other, not to cause anyone else pain.
"So we'll win?" Lily asked.
Harry nodded, "In the end, I have no doubt that we will. Somehow." He looked at his daughter, and noticed she had the same determined look in her eyes that he'd seen in Claire and Ginny just days before. When did that happen, he asked himself, seeing that sort of reaction from a child her age was rare, and it made him more proud than he could say. "Goodnight, Lily."
"'Night Dad," She said, reaching across and turning off her lamp.
Harry went to his room to find Ginny wide awake, "How did she take it?" She asked, concerned.
"Almost exactly like you would," Harry said, "She looked more pissed off than scared." He noticed that Ginny still looked worried and he added "I wouldn't worry, that dog of hers is pretty protective." She laughed silently before laying back down.
"Harry," she said, looking into his eyes. "Can you teach me how Occlumency?" Harry was already planning to do this, as it seemed that his wife was once again the target of a dark wizard's mind tricks.
"It won't be easy, I hated Snape's lessons." Harry said, remembering the hours spent in the dungeons with Severus forcing himself into his thoughts and memories.
"I know, but at least you already know everything about me, so it won't be so bad if you see my memories." Ginny said, smiling sleepily.
"We'll start this weekend," Harry said, "Just be careful until then, okay?" She nodded and he leaned over and kissed her goodnight before burying his face in his pillow and falling slowly to sleep. Tomorrow he would start at Hogwarts, and everything was going to change.
Somewhere outside the boundaries of his house, a small muggle boy stood, wondering what happened to the house that used to be in the abandoned lot in front of him.
"Wicked, isn't it. It just disappears when they do that." A cold voice said from behind him, startling him out of his trance.
"Who are you?" the boy asked, the voice had come from the shadow of a house behind him and he wasn't about to walk toward it.
"Oh, that doesn't matter." The voice said, "What I'm worried about is who you are."
"Stephen, my name is Stephen."
"Well hello, Stephen, it's nice to meet you. I need you to deliver a message to the people that live in the house that you just saw disappear." The voice said.
"How, I don't know who lived there." Stephen said.
"Oh, that doesn't matter," the voice said, stepping out of the shadows, Stephen didn't even have time to scream before a green light hit him squarely in the chest. "Your move, potter."