James had once read a book on dreams which he bought because he saw Evans reading it. It told him about lucid dreams - dreams in which the dreamer was aware he was dreaming.
This dream was definitely in this category. But being magically raised, he was open to the possibility that some latent Seer ability was coming out. If this was, indeed, a peek into the future, it was incumbent on him to stay asleep. He hoped the charm he'd gotten from Andromeda Black would help in that regard. Apparently, it was a legacy from his grandmother Dorea Potter nee Black that she hadn't been able to bring from her family home with her when she married Charlus Henry Potter. Since Henry Potter, as he preferred to be called, was Andromeda's great-uncle, she and James were second cousins, and he had the same relation to her cousin Sirius.
As such, James resolved to go with the flow of the dream. A few people had nicknamed his grandfather "Harry," so when Petunia Evans - apparently married to Vernon Dursley and the mother of a child named Dudley - slipped once and called him that name instead of "boy" or Vernon and Dudley's "freak," it wasn't that surprising.
James was not incompetent at cooking. When Remus got them to go "camping," a Muggle pastime that was good training for being Aurors - and quite enjoyable for their animal selves - James had been the cook. Sirius and Remus had taken care of hunting and fishing, while Peter had a broad knowledge of edible plants and mushrooms. Although he did a decent job, it wasn't what the Dursleys were used to, so they all complained.
If this dream was about the future, James didn't feel as old as Petunia looked. He took the first possible opportunity to look in the mirror. His eyes were now the same green as Evans. That would be a good sign - he was obviously dreaming about being their child. But then a question that begged to be answered was where he and Lily were.
In "his" room upstairs, he found a couple of letters from a Weasley he didn't recognise, and from a girl named Hermione Granger. The one from the girl apologised that Dumbledore had ordered her not to communicate with Harry. That raised James' hackles. He searched for other letters from Hermione. In one, he found her phone number.
After he completed every chore the Dursleys ordered him to do, which wore him out, he asked Petunia if he could call Hermione briefly. Her parents, he explained, did not hold with Magic means of communication such as owls. Petunia allowed it, but only for a minute.
When he got Hermione on the phone, he told her it was vital they should meet up at least for a while. She told him the headmaster had ordered her not to contact Harry this summer. James had seen one of Harry's letters berating Ron and Hermione for not telling him anything all summer. On a guess, he asked her how doing that to him had worked out last year. There was silence.
Hermione suggested a park near her house, and James told her he'd take the Knight Bus and be there in a few minutes. The bus driver looked like he might be related to Martin Shunpike, who was a couple of years behind James. Because he was James Potter, he paid a little extra to have hot chocolate. Even Remus and Sirius had trouble juggling it, but they always ordered it because he did.
Hermione simply stared when he arrived and stepped out without spilling his cocoa. He'd resolved to come clean with her.
"Something's tampered with my memory, Hermione. So, when I ask you a bunch of questions, don't get upset." His saying that, of course, upset her. She was a cute, if mousily dressed girl with hair even wilder than his. Harry and her would have kids with the worst hair in history, he thought.
"I've been going over my mail. Apparently, last summer you refused to communicate with Harry, and you were planning to do the same this summer, correct?" he asked.
The girl looked guilty. "Well, Professor Dumbledore ..." she began.
"Owns you as an indentured servant?" James asked, quirking an eyebrow. That made her angry.
"No, but you don't respect him, Harry, but the rest of us have no choice," she responded.
"There are always choices. Is he still giving out that drivel about doing what is right and not what is easy, and always doing what's easy?" James asked, not hiding his contempt for the bastard.
Hermione obviously was surprised at just how much "Harry" disliked their headmaster.
"Because if he is," continued James, "then the easy thing to do is put your conscience away in a box and let that bastard tell you what to do."
Her eyes widened.
"And the right thing to do is to think for yourself. What was his rationale in leaving me alone to be abused at the Dursleys last summer? And by the way, what was the rationale in the summer after first year?"
"That wasn't Professor Dumbledore, that was Dobby!" Hermione protested.
"The Malfoy house-elf? You were obeying his orders? Why?" James was puzzled indeed.
"No, no, of course not ... you really don't remember?" Hermione wondered. Seeing James shake his head, she continued, "He stole all your mail so you'd feel abandoned and not go back to Hogwarts."
"Well, it seems a Malfoy elf has more common sense than you or Dumbles have, then," James replied. "Unless your goal actually was to make me feel abandoned and not go back to Hogwarts, I mean. But I distracted you. Why did you cut off your friend Harry after your fourth year?"
"Dumbledore said you needed to be alone all summer to mourn Cedric, and come to grips with fighting V-Voldemort."
"Like I said, less sense than a house-elf," James observed. "And this summer?"
Hermione's face shifted between guilt and anger, back and forth.
"He said you already knew more than you should, you might be under dark influences, and you might be a danger to the safety and secrecy of the Order."
"Is the Order Dumbles group of fogies that meander around 'watching' the Dark Lord's people as they destroy Wizarding Britain?" James asked. He saw her eyes widen.
Maybe it's better if I take this dream seriously, he thought. Clearly, Harry was expected to remember who the Order was. That just brought her attention back to his memory admission. Moreover, Hermione was clearly Harry's Lily. Given his own track record there, perhaps he needed to mend fences instead of smashing into them like a raging bull.
"I'm sorry, Hermione," he said, suddenly. "I really do believe they do nothing worthwhile, that Dumbledore has never meant me or my family well, and that we'd all be better off leaving magical Britain behind, and just saving our friends. It wouldn't be honest of me to pretend to you about this, would it?"
His earnest plea mollified the girl, though it clearly also depressed her.
"Are you saying I have to choose between you and Professor Dumbledore, Harry?" she asked. Her voice was quiet but he could see her hands clenching.
"I am saying I don't trust him. Not one little tiny bit. Are you asking me to choose, your loyalty to Dumbledore or my wish to go on breathing?"
She looked offended.
"Because, no, I am not asking you to swear loyalty to me or anything. Which is what Dumbledore does to his Order. All I am doing is telling you the facts. If you want to discuss how I got here, and you won't jump to the conclusion that Dumbles is all-knowing because he won a duel with Grindlewald half a century ago, that might actually help us both. But you, of all people, I could never be against you. If we have to agree to disagree, that's fine with me. But I didn't think you realised where I am at now."
"Harry, I would be more comfortable with that if you didn't obviously have some sort of memory problems."
"I could explain that, and also explain how I have discovered a lot of things you don't know about, but Snape or Dumbledore would immediately rip it from your mind."
"You really, truly hate him, don't you, Harry?" she said. She was tearing up.
"I really, truly do. And even more so for Snape. Please put yourself in my shoes, for a second. Look at how my life's been."
"Without the blood wards on the Dursleys ..."
"The Dursleys might well be dead. Which I don't care about. Just like I don't care who gets hit by a pedicab in Vietnam. Not because I am cold-blooded or dark, but because it's not my responsibility. It's on James and Lily's friends, in the first place, and on Dumbles because he involved them, in the second place. But I would be with a family that could protect me if my parents' wishes hadn't been blatantly subverted by Dumbles. My best guess is that the Dursleys would either be safe, or someone could have helped them move away from Britain and no one would have bothered pursuing them."
"Sirius still supported him, Harry. And he had far more to make him hate Professor Dumbledore than you do," she tried.
Supported him. So Dumbles had killed Sirius, too.
"Sirius mainly supported him because I was stuck in Wizarding Britain and Hogwarts, and Dumbledore was holding access to me hostage to Sirius' behaviour. If I pointed out that I wanted to leave, he'd have kicked the Order out, blocked them ever finding #12 Grimmauld Place again, we'd have sought asylum in France, we'd work together ruining Dumbledore and getting Britain tossed from the Mugwump position, publish the truth about Dumbledore, Snape, Fudge, Malfoy, etc. all over the magical world, and Dumbles would have come to us hat in hand."
James could see she was at the end of her tether.
"Listen, Hermione. You are literally the only thing that's keeping me from doing that without him. You. And you alone."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
It hadn't worked with Evans. But it seemed Harry had done a better job with his Muggle-born. Unlike James, Harry hadn't left journals detailing his innermost thoughts. James couldn't be certain he was properly speaking for Harry. Then again, it was a dream, and he was Harry's father, so meddling was his prerogative.
"My first loyalty is to you. The only reason that doesn't transfer to Dumbles is that I firmly believe his end goal is to have me dead. He seems to believe that me dying will weaken Voldemort enough for him to prevail over him, because of a prophecy Trelawney made to him before I was born. And if I go along with that and die, who is left around who will put protecting you as their priority?"
"The prophecy? He told you?"
"No, only about it" Clearly, he hadn't, unlike with James and Lily, so James had to improvise. "But honestly, it's not that hard. The first prison guard they used was Mundungus Fletcher. I slipped past him with the cloak, flooed to Diagon, went to the Ministry, misled them about where I planned to go, used the cloak again, went into the hall of prophecies, and nabbed it. All I had to do was tap it with a wand, listen to it, and put it back."
Hermione clearly couldn't help looking interested. James recited it as best he could remember it. He and Lily had written it down and discussed it, after all.
"So ... wait ... could that have also meant Neville?" she speculated.
"It could have. My guess is both Dumbles and Voldie decided it meant me after that Halloween."
"I refuse to accept that Dumbledore is somehow this great evil figure, Harry."
"Well, he seems to think my link with Voldemort is part of what lets him come back as a wraith when he's killed, Hermione. So he clearly believes getting Voldemort to kill me will kill two birds with one stone."
"That ..." Hermione responded, "is pretty evil."
"I'm going to look into it," James said. "I would point out that Voldemort dying in 1981 meant we didn't have to deal with him for ten more years. But Dumbledore doesn't care about all that. About the whole memory issue. I think I was Confounded, multiple times. And when it was broken, the memories around it vanished. For instance, instead of just seeing the Order for what it is, I forgot about it. But I also recalled lots of things that didn't add up, things I asked people about then was forced to forget. Part of that is trying to get help if Dumbledore is right about my connection. He told me he wants Snape to teach me Occlumency. He wants someone in Voldemort's inner circle, who hates me more than any other living being, to invade my thoughts and memories and do whatever he wants. The same man who's destroyed Potions at Hogwarts for ten years. Who's recruited probably a hundred Death Eaters in that time period."
"So, who are you going to ask for help, Harry?"
"Tonks and her family, but the family first. Hopefully, they can convince her not to run to Dumbles," James said. "Then Gringotts, some families my parents knew on the continent, and anyone else who's neutral in the conflict between Dumbledore and his enemies."
"What do you want from me, Harry? That's what I can't understand," Hermione said.
"Well, first, if you run to Dumbles, you won't see me for years, probably. That's not me imposing my will on you, it's you imposing your will on me, and me avoiding it."
"You can't mean that, Harry."
"Unfortunately, yes. I've said, forcefully and repeatedly, that I won't work with Dumbles, that he's even more dangerous to me than Voldemort, that he's evil and manipulative. He's my enemy, Hermione. In fact, I plan to eventually declare a blood feud between House Potter and House Dumbledore. It's one thing when he rips everything out of your mind, which hopefully will wake you up about him. It's another if you're still so controlled by his cult that you offer up intelligence about me freely. If you've been envisioning a reconciliation where he actually improves my safety, that's a fantasy."
Since it was a dream, maybe being even more forceful would work. Or maybe this girl wasn't as stubborn as Lily.
"Hermione, if we go to Gringotts, if I get something out of my family vault that will protect you, if it's not me telling you about it, if it's them, that might help. Will you trust me that far?"
"Why should I do that, Harry?" she asked.
"Well, because if it were Dumbledore ordering you to do it, you would, without question. But in our years at Hogwarts, which of us was on your side more, me or him?" James hoped he wasn't bluffing. Fortunately, she just nodded. James raised his wand and summoned the Bus.
He felt a little disloyal that he enjoyed it when the bus forced him to hug Hermione to hold her still. That raised a question: what if his son had been in his time, in his own dream? How would he feel about Harry cuddling Lily? Well, aside from the pureblood ickiness factor. He was a fifth-year now, it was time to be grown up. If Harry could advance him with Evans, more power to him.
By the time they reached Gringotts, it was already lunchtime. He promised her a big meal at the Leaky Cauldron.
