A/N:

Enjoy this. I'm not even sure where I want this to go XD Who knows, perhaps it all was a dream :3

No betas for this! All mistakes are mine :)

Word Count: 1357

Disclaimers/Warnings: Mentions of night terrors, torture, canon death

Summary: Harry wakes up in the Graveyard. Things go a little too similarly for this to just be another nightmare…

Prompts:

Hogwarts School Of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Ongoing Challenge: Library

"Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" by J.K. Rowling (Setting) Graveyard

[January Monthly] Breeding Program

Kneazle

Ongoing Challenge: Gather Your Party!

Wizard (Necromancy) Setting: Graveyard/Cemetery

The Menagerie on Discord

Weekly Writing Challenge 1/1/24

1- (Scenario) Making a New Year's resolution or promise to someone

2- (Restriction) An entire scene is a sword fight or battle

"The Change"

His jagged breath sent puffs of mist into the air. He was back, back where he didn't want to be. A shining white face gleamed out of the darkness, too tight skin stretched across a grinning visage that haunted his nightmares still, even twenty years after Tom Riddle–Harry refused to call him Voldemort–had risen in the Little Hangleton graveyard, seventeen years since he had killed Tom Riddle permanently.

This must be a nightmare. What else could this be?

"Harry Potter." Tom's voice slithered through his mind, sticky and oozing. He talked, but Harry tuned him out, trying to find a way out of this scenario. Each time he got trapped in his mind, he had to work his way to freedom, to wake up and clutch at his blankets while stilling his rapid heartbeat.

Chills ran down his spine as Harry realized that Wormtail leered at him from next to his newly resurrected master as he pontificated, clutching his recently acquired silver hand to his chest.

The first Crucio took Harry by surprise. He dodged the second, and dove behind a crumbling headstone to hide from the third.

"You need to listen to someone when they're speaking to you! Get back here, Potter! Potter!"

Harry ignored him, army crawling between the gravestones to get away, straining against his seizing muscles through sheer spite. The pain just felt so real! None of his previous night terrors had been so vivid. Sometimes his mind tricked his body into feeling the pain, but this was on a whole other level.

Ducking behind a thick slab of stone, Harry relished the confusion in his wake. The serpentine Tom Riddle screaming at his sniveling supplicants would keep them all occupied while Harry either figured how to wake up, or to get out of there.

The last time he had one of these dreams, he had hallucinated so vividly upon waking up that he had almost hexed Gin. She had hexed him bald for a full day in response, her own war-honed reflexes snapping the hex off before either of them could think.

"Harry, promise me, if you're locked in another one of these dreams and can't wake up, you'll get someplace safe to calm down before coming back to consciousness. I don't need my own husband turning our marital bed into a battleground," she said. Harry nodded, his fingers massaging his bare scalp, both horrified and relieved to not have to deal with his messy mop of a mane, even if just for a moment.

"I can do that," Harry replied distractedly. Ginny snapped her fingers in front of his face and his attention focused on her.

"I need you to promise," she stated. Without a beat, Harry nodded again.

"I promise. If I'm ever stuck in a situation like this again, I'll get somewhere safe before snapping myself out of it."

"Need to get somewhere safe," Harry muttered. His eyes darted around as his mind whirled. If this was a dream, he should be able to Apparate out of here and get somewhere safe.

The flash of spellfire lit up Cedric's unmoving face, and Harry stilled behind the gravestone he hid behind. The Triwizard Cup laid a few feet past that, and a plan began to form in Harry's mind.

"Let's see how much of an influence on my dreams I can have," he whispered.

"Potter! Come out and face me! Fight like your father and die like a man!"

Gripping his wand tightly, Harry whipped around the headstone and flung out the first curse he could think of as he dashed between the graves.

"Sectumsempra!" Guilt roiled in his gut as Draco's pale face from sixth year flashed through his mind. Once they had become adults, he had apologized to the blond Slytherin, over and over again.

Draco had waved him away several times, citing that his near-death experience at the hand of a classmate gave him the realization he needed to be the better man he was today.

A wail of agony sprang forth from where his spell had connected. He hadn't aimed it, but it was a spell that didn't need to be aimed. Not if he was trying to maim and incapacitate people. Chancing a look, it seemed like he had taken down three of the cloaked figures.

Wormtail still stood by the cooling cauldron, cradling the new silver hand that his master had given him not even fifteen minutes ago. He was Harry's target. On the off chance that this wasn't a dream, and he had hallucinated the rest of his Hogwarts career and his entire adult life, Harry wanted collateral. He ducked behind the cauldron to sneak up on his prey.

"You're mine," Harry stated from behind the rat. Pettigrew squeaked in surprise, transforming into his rat form to avoid the incarcerous that Harry sent at him. A lead cage dropped on top of him and scooped him up. With another flick of his wand, Harry transfigured the cage, rat and all, into a wooden coin and tucked it into his pocket.

Focusing his attention back on the scene before him, Harry was surprised to find Snape's cutting curse had also clipped Tom's right hand, slicing off several fingers and the top third of his wand.

Tom Riddle was screaming.

Harry sent another Sectumsempra at him in a wide arc, hoping to catch more of Tom's followers in one go before jogging over to Cedric's body. Kneeling down, he gripped the cooling upper arm of the Hufflepuff Champion with his left hand before summoning the Triwizard Cup with his right. The cup sailed into his chest, and with a tug at his navel, they were gone from the graveyard and suddenly on the Quidditch Pitch.

It was pandemonium around him. The stands were emptying, adults were scurrying to and fro, and it was only the sound of the Portkey returning echoing in the temporary stands that made someone in charge pause.

Minister Fudge stood there in fright at the rough state the two Hogwarts champions were in. Harry, knowing he wasn't safe yet, played it up for as much as he could.

"How could you?" he exclaimed dramatically as the flashing bulb of a camera went off. "How dare you and the rest of the tournament organizers add that in! You know my history with You-Know-Who. Why would you put in an illusion in the last part of the task?!"

Fudge paled and pulled his bowler hat from his head to wring the brim. "W-what do you mean? There was no second part to the task," he stuttered.

Harry shook his head. "No, the cup was a portkey. It took us to a graveyard. Big cauldron, dingy headstones, the whole nine yards. Nice illusion, by the way," Harry stated with a glare. "Were those Aurors paid extra to dress up as Death Eaters?"

"Death Eater? Now see here, boy, there are no Death Eaters–"

"I know. The Ministry rounded them up at the end of the war. It's why I'm asking if the Aurors were paid extra. But the one who got Cedric needs to be brought up on charges." Harry looked down at the body under his grasp, and it was only then that Fudge realized the teen was dead.

"What's going on here?!" came the voice of Amelia Bones, and Harry had to hide his smile at the chance to add onto the performance. Oh, you mean it wasn't the Aurors who dressed up as You-Know-Who and his Death Eaters as an additional part of the task? That could have been the real deal?

As soon as he could, Harry needed to get somewhere safe to try to wake himself up. As amusing as this whole charade was, he wanted to be back in his own bed, next to his wife with their sleeping children in the next room. His body ached, but he could push through it. No nightmare would trap him, no matter how realistic it was. And if this wasn't a dream, and he really was stuck in the past?

Well, at least he had a head start this time.