CHAPTER 109: Requiem For A Dream (Part 2)


Weasley was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. He had warned him, so he shouldn't be surprised, but Harry somehow completely forgot about that until he came face to face with the boy.

"Everything 'lright?" Weasley mumbled.

"Yeah, fine."

"What'd Dumbledore want anyway? He didn't… you know…?"

"Know what?"

"Dunno," he shrugged. "Expel you or something."

Harry scoffed. In truth, he didn't much care if he had been expelled. Even if he was still in his life, it didn't really matter to him any more. But the way Weasley was looking at him, it was as if he was staring down Voldemort himself. They were the same age, he knew it, fuck, maybe Weasley was a little bit older than him. But fuck if he didn't look like a kid. A small, insignificant brat whose biggest troubles were passing all his exams and not making a fool of himself with whatever girl he fancied. It pissed him off, the fact that there were people like that, somewhere out there. And at the same time, it made him hate himself for thinking that way.

"Nah, I'm fine. We just talked, that's all."

Weasley was expecting him to say something more. Or maybe move the conversation along. Or maybe he just wanted to see him smile. Whatever he wanted, Harry didn't give it to him, and it made the situation just the more uncomfortable for the both of them.

"Are you okay?" Weasley suddenly asked. "It's just… you've been kinda off since you woke up."

"It's nothing," Harry turned away from him.

"Did something happen? Did I say something or do something or what?"

"Just drop it, alright?"

"Mate, I'm just trying to help-"

"I said drop it!" Harry snarled. He swirled around and stepped towards Weasley, who cowered back and almost shrunk under the open hatred that was pouring out of him. He looked afraid, and a little hurt, and Harry couldn't find it to take joy in it like he did when he was facing down Death Eaters, stomping them back and making them reel with fear. "Fuck!" He began pacing, willing himself to calm down. He was already acting odd enough, if he kept up like this he'd get himself sent away to St Mungo's before he could even leave Hogwarts. And how he wanted to leave Hogwarts. To have the chance to go home, to see his parents, and actually get to know them. Just to hear their voice, even if it's filled with contempt and disappointment. "I'm fine," he eventually gritted out. "Just didn't get much sleep last night."

He felt he should add an apology, even if it was just half-hearted, but he couldn't bring himself to voice it.

"Are you sure?" Weasley asked hesitantly "'Cause, really, if something happened I'm here. You know you can tell me anything, right?"

Harry wanted to laugh. "Yeah. I'll be fine. I just need to be alone for a while."

"Alright," Weasley tried to smile at him, but when Harry couldn't reciprocate it faded slightly. "I'm going to hang out with Neville. He didn't come with us to the Department of Mysteries last night, maybe if Hermione sees us around him, she'll forgive us quicker, yeah?"

"Yeah," Harry shrugged.

He watched as the redhead walked away, still not fully back to his obnoxiously loud self, but good enough that Harry felt he would be able to avoid another conversation like this in the near future. As he stood there, stiff and all wrong, in the empty hallway, he tried to think of something he could or should do. This life seemed so very different from his own, he didn't even know where to start. Was this thing even real? Permanent? Or would it be ripped out of his hands as soon as he was getting used to it? Was this chance to meet his parents a gift? Or just another way for Fate to fuck with his life. Aurora's words danced around his mind, somehow both deadening and comforting at the same time. An enthralling omen of what was to come, and one that he couldn't figure out.

He felt her presence before her arms curved around his middle, her soft face perching itself on his right shoulder. "And people say you can't be nice." She said in a light, almost teasing tone.

"What part of that was me being nice?" Harry scoffed.

"Well, nice for your standards, anyway." She hugged him tighter, and Harry found himself leaning deeper into her embrace. He couldn't explain it, the words wouldn't live up to just what it felt to feel her like this. Their connection, one he had barely got a glimpse of during the events at the Ministry, was now in full force. He could almost feel their souls touching, entwining with each other, as if a hole that he never knew existed had been filled so thoroughly, that it was almost spilling into the rest of his being. "You could've been a lot rougher with him."

"He'd have deserved it too. That bastard has been nothing but hateful towards me for my entire life."

"Has he? You just met him, after all. And he didn't seem at all like that to me."

"You know what I mean. My Weasley - the real Weasley. The one from my real life."

"This life is as real as you or me," Aurora reminded him, her soft breath calming him as it tickled his ear. "Different, yeah, but definitely real."

"And you brought me here."

"I told you I did."

"And you won't tell me why."

"I told you I can't."

He tried to step away from her, but she didn't let him, and Harry's fight quickly left him. He grabbed her small hands, stroking them with his thumbs as he let her calm him down. "You can't tell me why. You can't tell me what you want me to do. Can you at least tell me how long I'll be here?"

"As long as you want."

"Bullshit," Harry spat. He turned inside her arms, seeing the gorgeous ice-blue eyes staring compassionately at him. His hands hovered slightly before they settled around her waist, and he could feel that the action pleased her. "I want to know how long I've got. If Fate is going to fuck around with me, I at least deserve now."

"This isn't Fate playing games with you. Or me," she added fiercely.

"Aren't you? Isn't that what it's always been? My entire life, a shitshow just to please Fate's whims. Everything that happened, everything I-" his voice broke, and he couldn't bear to keep looking into Aurora's eyes. "I just want to know how long I have. When I go, I don't want it to be a surprise."

"It won't," she said, her eyes looking at him intently before her smile brightened. "But I'll tell you what, there is a surprise waiting for you right now. It's not too late for a nice little breakfast."

Harry's heart got caught in his throat. There was something in that look, or maybe it was their connection, but he instantly knew what she was talking about. It felt like a punch in his jaw, and when Harry slowly stepped back, Aurora finally let him out of her arms. "You can't… you don't mean…"

Aurora laughed, and Harry couldn't help but join her as well.

"Yeah, I do."

The words barely left her mouth before Harry turned around and bolted away from her. He ran through the castle, corridor after corridor, staircase after staircase, laughing like a madman because he just couldn't stop. Some students cheered him on, others tried asking what the hell was going on with him, but their voices faded with the wind as he pushed forward. He nearly crashed into a group of third-years when he leapt off the final staircase, landing with a roll right beside the entrance to the Great Hall. He pushed through the doors, pushed through the crowd that stood in his path, and his body immediately stopped when he finally made it inside.

His eyes roamed the hall, trying to find the blond girl that made his heart ache as if it would never beat again until he saw her. Everyone was at different tables, red and blue and yellow and green all over the place, without any uniformity that helped him find her. And then his eyes landed on her, spotting that wavy blond hair that was so unmistakably her. It was all he needed before he was sprinting once again, tuning out every sound and every person inside the Great Hall as he focused fully on her. On his girl.

His Susan.

"Woah-hoa, Harry!" She laughed the moment he crashed into her. He nearly toppled the both of them to the ground, but somehow they managed to keep their balance. Her eyes almost shined as they looked into his, those gorgeous blue eyes that were so very different to Aurora's, and yet, maybe even more captivating. And at that moment, he didn't care who he was supposed to be to her. He cupped her face before kissing her with all the passion he could put into it. Susan immediately reciprocated, their lips dancing with each other in a perfect, synchronized motion that spurred Harry on. Her face in his hands was just as soft and warm as it had always been. Her lips tasted just as sweet as they had. She felt the same. She sounded the same. She kissed the same. She was his Susan, and she was here, alive - not the rotten corpse that kept haunting his nightmares.

The Great Hall got rowdier, and he instantly knew they were the centre of attention, but Harry didn't stop kissing her until he started feeling light-headed, and it felt like he was only a few breaths away before he passed out. "Never," he breathed out his promise, feeling Susan's cool breath on his face. "Never again. I'm never leaving you again."

"That good, huh," Susan laughed, leaning in for a few more kisses. And despite how he wanted to cling to her and never let go. Despite the fact that he was from an entirely different life. Despite how utterly fucked up and emotionally charged just seeing her face again made him, those three little words pushed it all away. Right now, he was just Harry Potter with his girlfriend Susan Bones. And nothing else mattered.

"Oh, shut up."

"One kiss and I already have you at my beck and call."

"Susan I swear-"

She shut him up with a kiss, deepening it as she put her hands around his neck and pulled him forward. And just as Harry was starting to get lost in the feel of her lips, she pulled back and smirked at him.

"Told you."

"Oh, gross," someone whined behind him. "People are eatin'ere, ya know?"

Harry's surroundings came to him in a rush, making him realise he and Susan were right in the middle of the Gryffindor table. The entire fifth-year Gryffindors were there, the only people from other Houses being Susan, Padma Patil, and one of the seventh-year Hufflepuffs Harry barely recognised. Thomas was giving him the thumbs up, the Patil twins and Brown were looking at him and Susan adoringly, Granger was still ignoring him, and the others were pointedly ignoring them, though Weasley and Longbottom had smug smiles on their faces.

"Leave them alone," Brown complained. "They're adorable. You boys could learn something from him."

Adorable!? Him!? He was the fucking God of Retribution. The man who had brought Voldemort to his knees. Trained by one of the most skilled duellers in the world. How dare-

"I'm not adorable," Harry nearly growled.

"Yeah, you are," Susan scrunched up her nose, giving him one of those smiles that made his anger immediately evaporate. Harry gritted his teeth, trying to stay angry at Brown, at Susan for even suggesting that, but he knew he wasn't fooling her. She rolled her eyes at him before pulling him away from the group, though Harry could see those nosy twats trying to inch closer toward them. "So, how'd it go?"

"Go? How did what go?"

She gave him a smack on his head. "Don't think I'm not angry just because you're a great kisser. Why didn't you tell me you were going to try and sneak into the Ministry last night?"

"I… well…" Fucking this shit again? He could throttle that bird, he would. Of all the points in time or space, she brought him exactly the morning after his other self had done something completely ridiculous. "I didn't get the chance."

That answer really didn't go well with her.

"Well?" She pressed. "What happened?"

"I broke into the Ministry," he said, and it was the sort of truth.

"Not that, you dunce. Hermione told us Dumbledore wanted to see you - real mad you've made that one, God knows how you're going to make it up to her-"

"She'll get over it."

Susan snorted. "Best friends for nearly five years now, and you still don't know her at all."

Harry gaped. Friends? No, best friends! With Granger! How did this poor fucker do that? "It was fine," he eventually said. "Dumbledore was Dumbledore. Mrs Weasley somehow blamed me for it all-"

Susan laughed and Harry glared at her. "Oh, come on! You can't really say she's wrong, can you? It's always your stupid ideas that get her kids in trouble-"

"Oi!"

"Don't oi me, Mister. You know I like you, despite all your craziness." Harry grumbled but didn't say anything, he just wanted to get this argument over with. "What about your parents?"

"Pissed. Beyond pissed. Dad said they were disappointed with me."

"Ouch," she stroked his arm consolingly. "The two words no kid ever wants to hear. But it's alright. They're just angry now because they were worried. You guys will be back to normal in no time."

Harry smiled, doubting every word she said. Sure, they'd been pissed about his supposed attempt to break into the Department of Mysteries. But his parents hadn't taken to his new - well, his real attitude, had they? I mean, what was he supposed to do? He didn't know anything. But then again, they didn't know that he didn't know anything. And if Susan, his supposed girlfriend, admitted that he was at fault for all the stupid shit he and the others did, then maybe they had a reason to believe he was lying. Still, it didn't take away the sour taste he'd got from his first-ever meeting with his parents.

"Yeah, you'll be alright," Susan said. "You got me, after all."


Harry spent the rest of the day at Susan's side. It only lent credence to what she had told him, and she and others had teased him for it, but he didn't care. He couldn't. He tried, actively tried, to make himself angry at the accusations that he would do whatever Susan asked of him or that he was acting like a lovesick puppy. Any of those things would have set him off any other day, it would have been hard to stop himself from doing so. But whenever that happened, Susan would just give him one of her bright smiles or kiss him so sweetly, and he couldn't get angry. He couldn't even get angry at himself for not getting angry. Because it was the truth, he would do anything for this girl. If she asked him to go all the way to London to get her a quill, he didn't think he could say no. And if he did, it would only be because she wasn't by his side.

What was hard was coming to terms with the fact that most of the time, the two of them weren't alone. The fifth-year Gryffindors were very different in this life than in his own, having formed a rather tight-knit group that seemed to do everything together. They bantered and mocked and played whatever game Finnegan or Weasley whined the others to play with them. Susan seemed to be at home, as did the other Patil and the Hufflepuff boy - the respective partners of Thomas and Brown - as if they had all been friends for years now. It didn't take long for Harry to feel like the odd one out, a cog from a completely different clock that just messed with how this thing worked. Whatever he said led to awkward pauses or confused looks, and everything he didn't say left gaps where people looked at him expectantly to add to the conversation or move the topic along.

Susan took pity on him, many times at that, and he was so grateful for it, but it led to her asking him if he was alright a lot throughout the day. Any other person and he would have bitten their heads off, but with Susan, that was far from the case.

They spent most of the day together as a group, hanging out at the Great Hall for a little while after breakfast before they went to Hogsmeade for a last bit of shopping and a few butterbeers before the term ended. Harry stole every little moment he could with Susan, hovering near the rear of the group before pulling her back and kissing her ardently, not satisfied until her toes were curled, and her breathing was jagged. The group had lunch at the Three Broomsticks before heading back to the castle. Most of them had missed when Patil and Thomas lingered and left the group to explore the grounds on their own. It wasn't until Brown disappeared with her boy toy that the others noticed that the group was starting to drift away.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait long before Susan yanked his arm and led him away from those tossers. The moment they were in the clear, Susan pounced on him, and the afternoon went by far too quickly for Harry's taste.

By the time they reached the Great Hall for dinner, Harry could still smell a bit of Susan's in his face, and his entire neck was covered in hickeys. Susan had removed the ones he gave her before begging him to remove the ones on his skin, but Harry had outright refused.

"Harry! Just let me get rid of them," she was flustered, and she looked so beautiful with her cheeks pink and that pleading look on her face.

"Nope," he said happily.

"But then everyone will see them!"

"Let them."

After all the scars he had earned in his real life, the bruises and cuts he bore every time he came back from one of his missions, he would wear these with pride. If people wanted to look, let them look. If they wanted to think something, they could think it. These were for him, a reminder that she was here. Alive. Real. And that he was hers as much as she was his. Susan, though, wasn't having it, ambushing him on their way back to the castle. But that only ended with her being pinned down on the grass before he thoroughly kissed her worries away. He had never been so grateful to retain his muscle memory as he had been at that moment.

The boys jeered and wolf-whistled, the girls even looking at Susan slyly, causing her to blush further. But Harry only smiled and ate his dinner.

It wasn't until the next day that things started to go wrong. Waking in the Gryffindor Common Room was jarring, but his memory came back soon enough that he wasn't the mess he'd been the previous day. But the memories weren't enough to help him when the Gryffindors began ganging up on him, pestering him and touching him all over the place. Without Susan there to dampen him, it put him in a bad mood, and he ended up yelling at them to leave him alone. Weasley had looked on from the sidelines in concern, but what worried Harry was the way Granger was eyeing him. He had seen that face too many times over the past year, and he knew exactly what it meant.

When he got to the Great Hall, his damn muscle memory kicked in as he walked to the table furthest to the right. He noticed his friends immediately, and he pushed his way into the table, carelessly shoving Malfoy and Greengrass aside before he started picking up his breakfast.

"Fuck, I can't stand them," he ranted. "Loud, obnoxious bellends, they are."

The words had barely left his mouth before his brain caught up to him, and he looked up from his plate to see all the Slytherins glaring at him in distaste.

"Oh, please, don't stop," Theo drawled. "Help yourself to our breakfast, why don't you?"

Harry felt his chest burn with anger, seeing Theo looking at him like he used to back in their first year made him feel sick. Of course, the Slytherins would hate him in this life, he was supposed to be the perfect little angel Gryffindor. They had never been housemates, had never had to cover up Montague's murder, or fought together at the Battle of the Three Broomsticks. Their relationship hadn't been forged through the trials he had faced these past years.

"What's the matter, Potter? Got sick of hanging out with Mudbloods and blood traitors all of a sudden?" Pansy asked snidely.

"Of course he has," Draco scoffed. "I can smell their stench on him. How they can live with such filth, I'll never know."

"Oh, go cry to daddy, why don't you, Malfoy?" Harry spat before turning towards Theo and Pansy. He wanted to say something, anything that would make them recognise him. He hadn't realised how much he had grown to depend on their support. How much he had grown to trust them. Being forced to make friends with the Gryffindors was bad enough, but Harry didn't hand out his trust so easily, and even though he knew they weren't the people he had trusted, it still felt like a knife was being stabbed in his back. "Whatever," he shook his head and pushed his way out of the table. Not looking back, even though a part of him really wanted to.

The Gryffindors weren't too happy that he'd sat at the Slytherin table, even if it had just been for a few moments, and when they had bugged him about it, Harry had just ignored them. Susan never touched the topic, mostly fussing about his still-present hickeys or just playfully flirting with him, but Harry doubted she would let the topic fully drop. After breakfast, he made up his mind and left the group as he headed for the library, promising Susan they'd meet for lunch and hang out after. He wanted to spend all his time with her, but the morning's episode had shown him that he couldn't make any more mistakes.

He pulled out everything he could from the library, stacking copies of the Daily Prophet all over the desk he had commandeered dating back to the 1940s, as he started looking for inconsistencies between this life and the other one. The Chamber had still been opened and Myrtle had still died, and he ended up chucking most of the papers up to the 70s as he realised Voldemort and his Death Eaters had been as active and present as they had been in his life. The few names of people he knew who died in the first war still appeared in most of the obituaries, and the main Death Eaters were also present - though they didn't have code names here for some reason.

The research felt endless, as it had that day he went with Kieran to that little muggle town. And the fact that there were no glaring inconsistencies in his own life made it all the whole worse. Aurora sometimes appeared and helped him out, her presence at his side soothing him and her attempts to keep him talking to her keeping him from falling asleep. But she rarely lasted more than fifteen minutes before she disappeared, only risking appearing beside him when there was no one else in the library - which helped because sometimes one idiot or another would sit by him and try to talk to him before leaving when they realised he wouldn't indulge them. He was nearly done with the 70s when Granger's head appeared over the stacks of newspapers.

"What are you doing?" She asked him, and Harry almost groaned at the clear suspicion in her voice. God, not again. Not fucking again.

"Reading," he answered curtly.

"Newspapers?" She grabbed one and raised her eyebrow at him. "From the fifties. Never took you to have much of an interest in history."

"Well, what can I say? Goblin rebellions just aren't my thing."

And just as he thought he was going to press further, she walked away. And Harry soon left to go back to Susan, seeking the comfort of her lips after the very long morning that he'd had. That's how he spent his week, taking the mornings to study this new world while spending his afternoons with Susan, forcing himself to tolerate the others just to be around her, before going to his detentions with Weasley at night right before curfew.

He and Susan had their moments alone, small bubbles of time in which nothing outside them mattered, where he could finally lower his walls and be himself completely, and he loved it. They kissed and snogged and laughed and maybe petted each other a bit too much. And though they occasionally talked, he mostly basked in her presence. The feel of her warm body, being able to feel her heart beating when he hugged her, there was nothing like it. And though Harry could see that Susan was noticing more than he wanted her to, and how she could occasionally draw back into herself, Harry avoided the topic like the plague. Flirting with her to divert the topic, or just kissing her to shut her up. She got lost in the kiss just as much as he did, and he was using it as his weapon to keep his own sanity in check. But her patience was wearing thin, and the more he tried it, the more he could see she got angry with him.

She started giving him the cold shoulder. Ignoring him while they were with the others, or dodging his affections when they were alone. But Harry could play that game too. Oh, he hated it, hated playing it, but if she was set on leaving him alone, stranded in a completely different world where he had no allies or friends, he could also ignore her. It made him miss Theo and Pansy more, wanting nothing more than to go and spend more time with them. And though he hadn't made the same mistake of going to the Slytherin Table, he'd often find himself trying to catch a glimpse of his two friends, only earning him scowls and glares for his efforts.

Every fucking person in this universe who he wanted to spend time with was either him the cold shoulder, hated him, or was disappointed with him. He didn't count the countless students who came up to him and asked him about his thoughts on the latest Quidditch match, or invited him over for a game of Gobstones, or asked him for help with their summer essays. Wasting his time with them was like the times Aunt Marge came to visit the house, droning on about his drunk deadbeat father and his bitch of a mother. It was infuriating at first, impossible to keep himself calm, but after a few times, it was just boring and tedious, and couldn't wait until he was out of there.

Then there was the whole problem with the girls, who quickly noticed the distance that was appearing between him and tried to swoop in using all the same excuses as the others. Only they would sit a little too close, or they would bat their eyelashes and talk all weirdly to him. And just when he was starting to think he could get back at Susan for her cold shoulders by making her jealous, she appeared, shooing the girls away and pulling him into a broom cupboard, snogging him until she had taken all his breath away before leaving him stranded in the dark and ignoring him when he joined the rest of the group.

He began hiding in the library more and more, spending less time with Susan in the afternoon as he dove into everything that had changed in this universe. Hoping that, if he was lucky, he would get some actual information on what his life looked like. It would be weird asking other students or even teachers about him, and it would only bring him more suspicion and wariness, and he already had enough of that with Susan and Granger and Weasley and pretty much all the other fifth-years. In the end, he never managed to find anything about himself or even a lot of info on his family and friends, but after a few days, he managed to piece more or less the history of this new world.

Everything in this world was identical to his, up to the point of Voldemort's death. His parents had still been attacked, but the Ministry had been called in, and they arrested the Lestranges, Junior, and Pettigrew - who all got the dementor's kiss. Small change for the rest of the world, but a massive one for him, as he never went to the Dursleys and instead grew up with his parents. No siblings, none that he could find, at least, he simply lived the life that had been ripped away.

The world, on the other hand, did have some changes. In this life, Voldemort wasn't confirmed to be dead, only temporarily vanquished by Neville. He still earned the title of Boy Who Lived, but it meant much less here since Voldemort was still known to be around. The Death Eaters continued to fight, but without Voldemort, the war was far from what it used to be. A lot of the Pantheon Death Eaters were captured, more than in his universe, others vanished into the shadows. And though it took nearly another decade, there have been no Death Eater attacks since a little after Harry and the others came to Hogwarts.

The rest of the papers made no mention of Voldemort or anything happening at Hogwarts, but knowing what he did in his life, Harry could read between the lines and figure the events out for himself. Quirrell passed away from a disease at Hogwarts, so Voldemort must have still been in his head trying to get the stone. Hagrid, the gamekeeper, was still detained by the Ministry in their second year for a while, which meant the Chamber was opened. And the Triwizard Tournament still happened, with Longbottom being involved in them.

There was only one last mention of Voldemort, which was in June of '94, the night of the Third Task. Same events as in his life, only when Longbottom disappeared, Dumbledore and the Ministry acted accordingly. There was no explicit story of what happened other than Longbottom's safe return with Dumbledore and the Ministry unveiling the corpse of Lord Voldemort, finally proclaiming him dead. And if Dumbledore was supporting that, which it seemed he was, it meant there were no more Horcruxes out there.

"Are you okay?" Aurora asked him when he had finished piecing everything together.

Harry wanted to laugh at that. She didn't really understand, did she? What it was to be plopped into this life, this place where he was not supposed to be. Forced to experience a glimpse of the life he never had, the life he was supposed to have, waiting for when it would be ripped out of his hands. Trying to figure out what the whole bloody point of being here actually was. It made it all the more real that everything he went through had been meaningless. All the times he had been tortured or beaten down, he had somehow managed to gather the strength to pick himself back up. How could he possibly do that now knowing there's a universe where everything was perfect, where even Voldemort was killed, and he didn't have to give a single drop of blood for it?

This time, it was he who gave the cold shoulder.

His mind was a thunderous storm, he could barely see straight, much less bring himself to talk to Aurora. Whenever she appeared, he went off to the nearest populated area. Whenever she tried talking to him, he acted like she was nothing but an annoying gnat hovering around.

"I know you can hear me, Harry," she told him. "Please. Just talk to me, okay?"

But he didn't, and after she realised he wouldn't budge, she stopped coming to him altogether. And even though he had finished his research and had nothing left to do in the library, he kept coming here, avoiding Susan and everyone else in the morning as he tried to process it all. Granger would always come to the library, sitting on a table away from him. And though that was normal for her, even in his life, he still felt her eyes on the back of his head. There were times when he wanted to round up on her and yell at her to leave him alone. To piss off and never come back. But he didn't. Just fucking barely.

Susan was still ignoring him. Somewhat. More or less, He had never understood women, really. In the mornings, she barely looked at him through breakfast. But she was always there, sitting right beside him, and even sometimes, she'd grab his hand and squeeze it from time to time. Then he was gone, off in the library with no intention of going out to look for her, and she'd show up. She'd pull him out of the library, and they'd walk along the grounds before settling on some quiet place where no one was watching. She wouldn't kiss him any more, wouldn't let him kiss her either, but she always set herself in between his arms and snuggled into him. And Harry never found the courage to tell her no. And then they'd go back to the castle, and she'd go to once again ignoring him.

God, he missed fucking up some pub thugs. Anything that would let him vent his anger. He'd tried once, going to the Room of Requirement. But it was completely different to what he was used to. It didn't seem to have a soul or a conscience, not like in his universe. And it couldn't create moving dummies that looked and acted like Death Eaters. At most, she - it - could create a static dummy for him to target. If he was lucky, it would have wheels and move robotically around. Still, Harry couldn't bear being there for more than ten minutes, immediately missing the personality and relationship he used to have with the Room. And he never went back.

It wasn't until the last day before the train left, when he and Susan were looking at the sunset behind the Black Lake, that she finally spoke to him.

"Are you finally ready to talk?" She asked.

"You're the one who started ignoring me," he said, and fuck did he sound like a bloody woman being so passive-aggressive.

Susan scoffed, pushing herself off his arms before turning to face him. "Oh, no, no, we both know that's not true, Mister."

They were really about to argue. This was Susan. He had never fought with her, not like this. They were Harry and Susan, this shit wasn't supposed to happen. "How'd you figure that?"

"Something happened. I don't know what, but something did. You've been acting different ever since that night you sneaked off to the Department of Mysteries."

Harry scowled. "I'm fine. Nothing's wrong. I'm not acting differently. I don't know why you and the others won't just drop it."

"And that's exactly my point. It's not just me you're acting odd with. You've barely been hanging around with Ron and Neville, and they're your best mates. Hell, you even sometimes call them Weasley or Longbottom as if they were just another Malfoy in your way. You glare at Hermione every chance you get. And you actively ignore all the rest. What happened? Just talk to me, I'm trying to understand. Did you guys get into a fight?"

"What do they have to do with you? With us?" Harry demanded.

"They're our friends."

"Not my friends," Harry grumbled, and thankfully, Susan didn't seem to catch that fully. "So what? You started ignoring me because I'm not all happy and chirpy and jolly and fucking dandy?"

"Don't," she warned. "Don't do that. Not with me." Because of fucking course. If his parents didn't like him swearing, Susan wouldn't either. Fucking hell, was this whole universe so fucking soft? "I'm angry because every time I've tried to bring up the topic you've ignored me or tried to shut me up or just acted as if there wasn't a problem, like you are now."

"Well, if I don't want to talk about then just get the bloody message, will you?" He yelled out and immediately regretted it. Not once, in his actual life, had he ever seen Susan look so hurt by something he did. And he couldn't help but wonder if it would have been better for him to have never seen it, even if he missed this extra time with her. "I'm fine," his voice shook as he spoke. "Really. Fine. I just have a few things on my mind and I don't want any of you messing with them, alright?"

"We're supposed to be a team," Susan pressed. She inched forward and cupped his cheek. "Your problems are my problems. We're meant to burden them together, and I can't do that if you just shut yourself like that. Just… please, let me in. Tell me what's going on and we'll fix it together."

And he did. He really, really wanted to tell her. Because how could he deny her anything when she was looking at him with those gorgeous blue eyes filled with love and concern and a deep need to help him? But telling her the truth would mean her knowing that he wasn't her Harry. Not the one she fell in love with. Not the one she loved. He was just an intruder, a body-snatcher, someone who didn't deserve the love she so clearly had for him. For his other him. She would leave him. Worse, she would demand him to leave, to bring back her boyfriend and return to the dystopian world he called home.

He'd get Theo and Pansy back. And the other Slytherins. He'd get Michael back. He'd live in a world where people didn't constantly ambush him and where he didn't have to pretend he was someone else. But he would lose Susan. He would lose his parents. Everything he told himself he did was for them, to honour them, to repay them for their sacrifices. But they were here. Alive. And they were with him, in a life where he was happy, why the hell would he-

His blood ran cold, and he felt that cold anger he hadn't felt in so long tingle across his body once again.

"I'm fine, Susan." His voice was almost robotic, and it scared her, he could tell. "We'll talk tomorrow, alright."

"Fine," she spat, getting off the ground and glaring down at him. "Have it your way. Be an idiot. But don't expect me to waste my time worrying about you if you can't even worry about yourself."

Harry watched her stomp away, leaning against the tree, as he heard her mutter and growl about whatever she was thinking about him. He watched it all impassively, his heart beating steadily, and he felt when Aurora finally appeared behind him. He hadn't seen her in days, and though a part of him had missed her before, he didn't feel anything for her right now.

"As long as I want, is it?" He asked, and even though he couldn't see her, he knew she had put it together.

"Yes."

"But you don't mean that, really?" He turned to her, eying her coldly. "You don't mean it in the way that I could be here until I died of old age if I really want to. You mean that I'm here until I decide that I'm not. That I don't want to be. That this isn't my life. That I'm not worthy of it."

"Not worthy?" She looked insulted by the insinuation. "Harry, you're more than worthy of it. You're worthy of so much more than what you have been given."

"Clearly not if you brought me here just to punish me," Harry growled out. "So that's the catch, right? You're twisting up the versions of my parents. My girlfriend. Making me hate them and making me miss my old life. My old friends. Making me beg to go back to my real life."

"I haven't been making you feel anything. And I'm not forcing Susan or your parents to act how they're acting. I created this universe, I made those changes for you to have your perfect life. Your parents are alive. Susan is alive. You were never sorted into Slytherin. That's all I did, Harry. The rest is the natural progression of the universe. How they're acting, it's how they would have acted in your universe if these things had happened."

"So they would have hated me, is that right? That's your big lesson here?"

"No!"

"Then what?" He snarled. "What the fuck do you want to teach me with this. Why are you so insistent on torturing me like this?"

"I'm not torturing you-"

"It's the same fucking thing! You created this universe, is that right? You controlled everything, right? You could have made it so that I had the memories of this fucking idiotic Harry. So that I had his life, his fucking… Gryffindorness that everyone in this fucking place seems to adore. Instead, you did- you did this."

"What would be the point?" Aurora challenged. "Change your memories. Change everything. You lose every bit of yourself: your identity, your personality. You wouldn't be yourself any more, your very soul would be rewritten. You… you would die, Harry. Everything that is you, truly you, would die."

"THEN LET ME DIE! Let me fucking die! It would be better than being this… being… me. At least that way, my soul, my body, my whatever it is would live a good life. An actual life that's worth living."

"Your life is worth living!" Her voice was desperate, almost pleading. "That's the whole problem here. You can't keep living like this, killing yourself just because you think it will make the people who love you proud, because it won't. You'll just keep digging your own hole instead of actually trying to do something of value with your life. They're gone. They died. For you. So that you can be happy, so that you can have a future. And yeah, things are rather bleak in your life. Sometimes, it feels like there's nothing but a deeper, harsher rock bottom waiting for you. But you have some many things there that you don't even realise. You can still make a good life for yourself, one where you can be happy despite everything you've lost. You just need to believe that you're worthy of it. You need to love yourself."

His eyes stung, his body vibrating. He stepped forward, and looked deep into Aurora's blue eyes. "They're not gone. They're here. And I'm not going to fuck this up, not this time. Because if you think I'm going back to that world, even for a second, you're dead wrong."


That's it for this chapter, thank you all for reading!

By the time I'm posting this, I'm TWELVE chapters ahead, and I'm in the middle of writing the first arc of Book 2 of the Pray For The Wicked Saga! If you are interested in learning how to get early access to them, join my discord server using the following link: discord . gg / jyPfbGqhJT

As always, thank you for reading, favouriting, and commenting! I appreciate all of you! :)