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There was something dark in the cupboard under the stairs. Something which didn't care whether mortals lived or died. Why should it? Harry looked within himself and found that dark something. It was alien. It was vast. Its mind whirled with unrestrained horrors.

Harry could recall gruesome experiments performed in his own name back when he had been called Grindelwald. Of course he wasn't Grindelwald. Not anymore. He was Harry.

But still that vast thing whirled.

And then came Dumbledore. A bright star to light up his life. In one life a partner and enemy. In another life a father figure. The two wrestled and battled deep within Harry's mind as he slept. There was only so much he could genuinely do about it. He was in the process of becoming. He was on a journey where no one had ever been before. In this vessel, to sail the ocean of the cosmos with this planet to tether him. He had his affections and attractions which set him apart from the others. He doubted Voldemort loved as he did. He knew Grindelwald never had and perhaps Dumbledore hadn't either.

That was distracting. Daphne was a distraction. But it was a good distraction. It kept him grounded as that vast thing whirled away in his dreams. He had Daphne. He had his friends. Neville. Michael. Lisa. Tracy. And especially his precious precious Daphne. What would he be without her. He would be drowning. He would be experiencing the full brunt of the human emotional spectrum without any outlet.

He resolved to kiss her when he woke up. If only he could move. His body lay still deep in dreams. He reached for his new wand. Dumbledore's old wand. He reached for it and nothing happened. He couldn't move. He knew what they called this. Sleep paralysis. He drooled into his pillow and let out a meek groan. He focused on moving his toes and fingers. It was like being electrocuted. Something massive loomed over him. It was dangerous. It was powerful. It may well be that unstoppable amortal wraith which haunted him like an evil specter from the end of time.

He could see it now. Voldemort living forever. Every time his body was destroyed he merely made a new one. Until the sun burnt out. Until past then. Until there were no stars left. Until the last planet died. Could he really do it? Could he really match that intensity. There was entropy to consider. THe universe would wear on the fragments of Voldemort's soul. They would be burned away. Harry could do it. Just not alone. He needed Dumbledore. But there would come a time when he wouldn't. And what would he do then? He would surely miss Dumbledore but Dumbledore didn't want to cling to life like that and Harry could scarcely blame him.

All this universe is like water. Harry was something the whole universe is doing in the same way a wave is something the whole ocean is doing. He felt his edges melt as he lay paralyzed. He felt himself become one with the universe. It was a horrible dreadful feeling. It made him feel disgusting. He blinked and he was trapped. He was stuck inside a wall of flesh that he could no longer tell where it began and he ended. There were other people in the wall. People screamed. But nobody made it out of that four and a half billion year deep corpse pile. Not even Voldemort would. He was something the whole universe was doing at the place he called here and now.

Eventually Harry could move. He got out of bed without waking his roomates. He needed something to drink. He felt thirsty. He summoned a glass and filled it with water. He downed it. And once he finished it he followed it up with two more. Then he dismissed the glass and lay back down. He knew it was futile. He would never get to sleep now. He never wanted to sleep again if that happened again. But he knew he needed sleep. Who was he to criticize the nervous system? Sleep and pain were imperative. They granted context. They supplied it. Sleep was a time to organize memories. This was probably going to get worse before it got better. He exhaled hard. He rubbed his face with one hand. He dressed himself and went down to the Ravenclaw common room. He stared. Luna was there. Staring off into space. He walked over to her.

"Luna?" He pressed.

She glanced at him. But only for a moment. Then she went back to staring at the wall. Just above the fire across from the debate podiums. Those pedestals. It was a trap. He knew that. Still he reached out with his mind and entered her. She shuddered as he slipped inside. There were the brilliant lights of pure truth. Harry ignored them despite how they tempted him. He knew the price of invading one of those. It would bring him nothing but pain.

Harry soothed her. He sent her waves of pleasure and relieved her headaches.

"Let's suppose you were able to dream every night any dream you wanted to dream." Luna murmured.

"Sure," Harry granted.

"You would have every kind of pleasure imaginable. You see?" Harry did so he nodded.

"Eventually after a handful of nights you would say 'wow that was pretty great. But now lets have a surprise. Lets have a dream where I'm not in control. WHere something is going to happen to me that I don't know what it's going to be. And you would make further and further gambles. And you'd get more and more adventurous as to what you would dream. And eventually you would dream where you are. What you are basically. Deep deep down. Far far in. Is simply the fabric of reality and existence itself."

Harry nodded. He could see it. Was reality some mad god's dying dream?

"Does it matter whetherd this reality is a dream?" He wondered.

"Does it matter whether we exist, you mean?" She demanded with some venom. "Of course it matters. Why should we do anything at all? Why are we here? Just to suffer?"

"I know you're in pain," he murmured gently.

She positively glowered at him for that. "I'm functioning as god intended."

"You posit that god doesn't make mistakes. Your suffering is the point."

"What about your suffering?" She shot back. "What about the pain you go through?"

There was his trauma from the Dursleys. He knew that. That was an ongoing pain. There was the war within his mind against those fragments of Grindelwald he assimilated. Then there was the battle in his soul in which he struggled, perhaps in vain, against Voldemort's soul fragment. He was in agony. This was true. It transcended pain. It was existential angst. It hurt to exist.

"What can we do about it?" He wondered.

"We can kill ourselves, of course." Luna answered immediately.

"Death is not an escape. Whatever death is its not an escape. You know that. I know you know that. It wouldn't free you from this to move on." He fired back after a moment's hesitation. He laughed.

"Then what am I supposed to do?" She wondered with tears in her eyes.

"We lean on each other. It's all we can do. Here." Harry reached out to her physically and wrapped his arms around her. She shuddered in his arms. Harry knew in his heart she wouldn't make it. She would scream in that wall of flesh. But there would be no escape. Not from her. Not in this.

He soothed her with his mind with gentle coaxing waves to remind her she wasn't alone. Just the barest touch.

"We're both fucked up. You and me. For different reasons, of course." He whispered in her ear.

"I'm so tired…" she croaked. "I want to live in the present."

"I know. I believe you. Come on. Have a cup of tea with me and then let's put you to bed. He got up and led her downstairs to the main hall across moving staircases and past nights an paintings which snoozed in the early dawn light. He got a cup of tea and served it to her. Then he took one for himself and drank of it deeply. She sipped gently on hers.

"Thank you, Harry."

"No problem. It's the least I should do."

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-WG