Chapter 4: Oh, how I wish…
Harry did not always find Sam straight away when he fell asleep.
Most often, he would drift around his darkened dreamscape for what felt like hours until at last, a glimmer of light appeared and, within it, a little boy with a wide, crooked smile.
Harry had lost count of how many days it had been since Ron's visit. He'd received an owl from Hermione urging him to be careful – at least, that's what he assumed it said. He could not remember reading the letter though it lay open on his bedside table so he knew that he must have done.
On the few occasions when he'd been awake, Grimmauld Place had felt remote and hazy, more dreamlike than his dreams themselves. He found that he didn't like it, being awake… So he went to the bathroom, splashed water on his face before hurrying back to bed where he would lie staring at the ceiling until at last sleep gathered him up in its comforting arms and whisked him off and…
"Harry! You came!" Sam would shout, delighted and surprised as always.
"Hi Sam."
Sam.
His brown hair was almost red and tousled rather than messy like Harry's. He had freckles, like Harry's mother, and hazel eyes, like his father. But the boy's smile, innocent and slightly dopey, that smile… it was something Harry recognised from the few pictures he had, not from his parents, but of himself at the start of Hogwarts. Somehow, looking at Sam dream after dream, it didn't feel that much of a stretch to imagine that they really were somehow related…
Greetings exchanged, Harry would sink down to sit next to Sam, cross-legged on the floor. There, face-to-face with the boy who thought he was his younger brother, Harry would listen first to his stories before sharing his own.
He told Sam about his friends. About how close they were. And how that closeness was exactly why Harry didn't feel like he could talk to them at the moment.
Harry told Sam about how lost he felt, now that he'd fulfilled the only purpose that people seemed to have for him. He told him that he felt he didn't really belong to the magical community.
Throughout, Sam listened, and though Harry could tell the boy didn't really understand what he was saying, not once did he interrupt.
Sam, in his turn, told Harry about his parents. About his sisters. About how he felt that, no matter how hard he tried, he was never quite good enough for them. And about Harry's birthday that would be coming up in a few weeks and how it was the saddest day of the year, topped only by that day in October when Harry had been killed.
"I wish," Sam said one day, his smile taking on an edge of sadness that turned his hazel eyes a shade greener. "You know, I wish I could take you home with me… I wish…"
And Harry thought, 'I wish that too…'
A/N: This is the last of the intro chapters. We'll find out what happens with the boys' wish next chapter :) thank you all for reading!