Chapter 11: Seventeen years

Harry wiped his palms on his borrowed jeans. He tried his best to hide the fact that his heart was racing and that his mouth had suddenly gone so dry he thought his tongue might be permanently stuck to his palate.

That voice… It was the same as the one in his nightmares. The same as the one he could hear, raised in a scream, when the Dementors came close – but this time, it wasn't pleading for his life. It was calm, collected, caring, just like the face in front of him.

He closed his eyes.

"Why don't you tell me how you came to be here?" Lily asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

"I…" he tried, his voice cracking painfully.

Lily gave him a small smile. "James said Sammy mentioned something about dreams…?"

"Yeah, I… um… I met Sam in my dreams a couple of months ago I think." Harry risked a glance up at Lily, then James. He cleared his throat. "We started talking. Then last night Sam said he wished I could go home with him and I…" He paused. "And I wished for that too."

"I see," Lily, said quietly. She glanced at her husband before turning back to Harry. "Harry, what did Sam tell you about his –" She hesitated. "…his life?"

"He told me… he told me that here, I was ki– I mean… your son Harry was killed when he was a baby." He caught the flash of anguish on their faces and cringed. "I'm sorry," he muttered, looking down at the table again.

"That's right," Lily said. Her voice was low, her tone flat. "Seventeen years ago this October. Did Sam tell you how it happened?"

"He said Wormtail betrayed you. That he gave you a sleeping potion…"

"He did."

"Didn't want us to stand in Voldemort's way," James hissed, "that sneaking –" Harry saw Lily squeeze her husband's hand tightly and James stopped short.

Looking up, Harry found Lily's eyes searching his face.

"Um…" he said, unsure whether she expected him to just keep talking.

"What else did Sam tell you?" she asked gently.

"Well, Sam said Voldemort killed Wormtail…?" he volunteered. Lily sighed. It was the tiniest puff of breath, but it held echoes of such relief Harry felt like he'd missed something. "And that he disappeared after killing… I mean, after that night?"

"He really said that?" James interrupted, a slight frown on his face.

"Yeah, he said Voldemort wasn't around in your world."

"Oh right," James said. "Well, that's correct, but it didn't happen on the night Harry died."

"What? What do you mean?"

"The war lasted for another couple of months after that."

Harry blinked.

"I don't understand," he said slowly. "Voldemort didn't disappear on Halloween?"

"No," James replied, just as Lily said: "Well…"

They looked at each other. After a second, Lily raised an eyebrow and James gave a sigh of defeat.

"Fine," he said. "Officially, Voldemort disappeared the night he attacked the Longbottoms on Christmas Eve –"

"Voldemort attacked the Longbottoms?" Harry couldn't help but interrupt.

Lily gave James another look.

"Well… The Lestranges and Crouch Junior attacked the Longbottoms. Presumably on Voldemort's orders…"

"But…?" Harry asked, leaning forward.

"But," Lily said, before James could answer, "we have reasons to believe that they acted on their own, and that Voldemort had already disappeared by then."

Harry waited for her to elaborate, and when she didn't, he leaned back on his chair. 'Reasons to believe Voldemort had already disappeared…' Harry would bet his wand that the information had come from Snape's work as a spy – though whether Lily knew that, he couldn't tell. As to why that information hadn't been released to the rest of the wizarding population when it had in his world… Did they hope to capture more Death Eaters if people were kept on high alert?

"What happened to the Longbottoms?" Harry asked eventually when the silence had stretched for several long minutes.

Lily seemed to shake herself from deep thoughts. "Neville was fine, but Alice and Frank…"

Harry nodded grimly. "Right…"

Even in his dreams, it seemed, he couldn't hope to avoid the impact of the war…

A/N: Another short one, with a bit more happening than in the previous chapter though. And the next chapter will be a longer one, I promise. Thank you all for reading, and for taking the time to review my little story!