We're finally back with the sequel :D The first part, Worlds Beyond Death, can be found on my profile.
This sequel is a biiiit darker and more explicit than the first part, so do mind the following warnings: torture (side characters), sexual content, Genocide.
Additional warnings may be provided in the AN of certain chapters too.
As I have received a request for a summary of book 1, I figured it best to start with the prologue and the aforementioned summary.
General info about this story and its pacing especially: this book is a counterpart to Book 1 in the sense that it has reversed pacing. World Beyond Death started fast and ended slow (5 chapters covered 11 years, 15 chapters covered 1 year and the last 11 chapters covered about 3 days). Dreams Beyond Blood will instead start slow and speed up as the story progresses as there's a lot of info to cover at the start especially.
Enjoy!
Prologue
The world had once had immense expectations of Harry James Potter. As a mere babe, he'd defeated a Dark Lord, after all, then repeated this impossible feat almost seventeen years later.
This impossible, grave mistake that they grew to hate him for.
Even shunned, blamed, and exhausted once the free mages in Great Britain numbered barely a few dozen, Harry never gave up. Not when all hope seemed lost. Not when the last chance offered meant travelling back in time and leaving his best friends behind to prevent Lord Voldemort's downfall. Not when upon waking, he was forced to acknowledge he'd arrived in a different reality, one in which Harry found himself tied stronger than ever to the man who'd slaughtered his parents and marked him an enemy.
Once again, he survived. Learned to live again in the arms of that very enemy. Yet towards the world, he had far less love to give than hatred to dash out.
Harry had never given up on his dream of achieving peace. But by all beings unholy, he'd flood the earth with blood to cleanse it first.
Summary of Book 1: Worlds Beyond Death
After the events of the Battle of Hogwarts, mages are at peace for only a few years until Muggles discover there are magical beings walking among them. It escalates into a brutal war that Muggles start to win once technology is developed that suppresses magical cores. Harry leaves his job as an Auror to gather the members of the Order and the D.A.; first to fight back, later to flee and hide. Many lives are lost over the years – Ginny, Fred, Neville, Arthur and Teddy to name a few - and by the time Harry is in his mid-thirties, he, Ron and Hermione have become isolated from their remaining friends. He travels to Azkaban in hopes that Muggles haven't discovered the island, though all Harry finds is a bitter community of Death Eaters who refuse to grant all three of them shelter. Instead of a safe haven, he receives a second chance in form of a description of a ritual that should allow Harry's soul to travel back in time far enough to save the Dark Lord, the only one who can prevent all this.
The ritual goes awry. Instead of waking up at eleven years old as planned, Harry is met with the sight of his parents cooing over him, their newborn. More jarringly, strange details are out of place, such as Snape being present as their Healer and Harry having a mark of a red eye on the back of his hand despite just being born. Over time, he comes to realise that the world he has woken up in is not his own. Snape is a good family friend, Sirius has been the head of the Black family since he was ten, and most importantly: every mage has a soul mate. It does not take long for Harry to guess who his own Intended must be: Lord Voldemort himself.
Harry uses the time as a babe to practise wandless magic and spy on conversations between his parents and Dumbledore, through which he learns there is still a Prophecy in play. With much of this dimension being similar to the one he's lived in, Harry plans to utilise his future knowledge to steer this timeline regardless of the few differing details. Yet the first time he tries this by casting the Imperius curse on his parent to send them to Muggle London on Halloween 1980, he learns that not all can be prevented, for they are killed nonetheless. When Voldemort shows up in Godric's Hollow, bearing a soulmark of a silver lightning bolt on the side of his neck - the shape of a scar that does not yet exist - Harry realises that one more thing should not be prevented.
Voldemort dies that night by his own hand, the killing curse backfiring as soul mates cannot murder one another. Desperate to make at least some positive changes, Harry crawls outside to wait for Sirius and holds his godfather up long enough that not Sirius, but Snape goes after Wormtail for answers. Though Snape get none, with Wormtail blowing up the street and turning into a rat, Snape's calm demeanour enables him to explain the situation to the Aurors without landing in shackles. With both Sirius and Snape taking Harry to Grimmauld Place Number twelve, already the Order's Headquarters, Dumbledore cannot convince the men to leave their new charge with the Dursleys. Not after Harry starts crying at each mention of Muggle relatives and Hagrid lets slip in front of Snape that Petunia is meant.
In the years growing up at Grimmauld Place, Harry acts like a polite, studious kid during the day and hunts for leverage on Voldemort during the night. Unable to count on being taken seriously by the Dark Lord due to age, he gathers as many Horcruxes as possible – the diary, the diadem and the ring – as well as sneaks into Dumbledore's office to listen to the full Prophecy. The latter is similar to the one he is familiar with, except for the line 'neither can die while the other survives', making Harry an even more prominent target of whomever wishes harm on Voldemort. Before starting Hogwarts, he figures out a few more details about this world: Neither Severus nor Regulus ever became Death Eaters, Wormtail doesn't show up at the Burrow to be taken in as a pet rat, Voldemort did not hide his Locket Horcrux in a cave, and Severus and Sirius end up being soulmates - which they had never realised due to misunderstandings. The most shocking revelation is when he stumbles across Hermione at Wool's orphanage, where she's been placed after her family died on a fishing trip gone wrong.
The amount of difference to keep track of only grows when he starts attending Hogwarts. Not Quirrell but Lockhart is his first Defence Professor, with Quirrell being the new librarian. There are new faces he does not remember and others are missing, such as Seamus, who was born a Squib. None of it makes Harry waver in his goal of saving his loved ones, so he searches out Quirrell after library hours to have his first conversation with the Dark Lord. Harry lays most of his cards on the table, from the man's wand to the Horcruxes Harry safeguards, as well as his knowledge of the future if war won't be prevented. Though Voldemort is initially not receptive, he quickly comes to recognise the truth behind Harry's words. Many back-and-forth conversations and revealed secrets later – of the number of Horcruxes Voldemort currently has to the resurrection ritual Harry witnessed once upon a time that did decidedly not use the Philosopher's Stone – some trust is won between the both of them. When Harry aids the Dark Lord in resurrecting the following Halloween, Voldemort hints at a shared future, showing he is not averse to the idea of accepting their soul bond. Through Quirrell, Harry discovers that this magic-given bond is, in fact, the only form of human connection that the Dark Lord truly sees worth in.
With Voldemort leaving Hogwarts early, Harry has months left in the castle to concentrate on his own goals: preserving magic and punishing Lockhart for the fraud's misdeeds against his fellow mages. With help of Hermione, the only person whom Harry has told everything, he brainstorms about ways to steal the Philosopher's Stone to prevent its destruction, and on spooking Lockhart in the process by imitating Basilisk attacks. His mind is only taken off this during holiday breaks. Christmas is marked by presents: a dragon egg from Voldemort, the invisibility cloak from Dumbledore, and a promise of looking into adopting Hermione from Sirius. Easter is marked by visits instead: Voldemort shows up during a Quidditch match and pretends to be Zacharius Smith to spend time with Harry – desperately needed as the man's mind and magic are heavily affected by the Deterioration, a magical phenomenon that can happen when soul mates are apart for a long time after initially meeting. That same evening, Regulus drops by for Easter dinner, making Hermione freak out as she realises Regulus might be her Intended, as her soul mark is the constellation Leo with the 'Regulus' star being highlighted.
After Easter, Harry's plans start rolling faster. With help from Voldemort, who sent him a gorgon serpent that can petrify people – whom Harry names Hera - they convincingly push Lockhart into a corner. The act is a bit too convincing, for Hagrid is arrested much sooner than Harry had expected, and when Hera gets her blindfold off and petrifies Ron without permission, Cornelius Fudge visits the castle, sporting a much shinier spine than Harry recalls. During a conversation with Fudge, Harry manages to convince the Minister that Dumbledore is the one blocking Lockhart's investigation, leaving the playing field open when the Headmaster is arrested too. Using this opportunity, Harry and Hermione stage the 'Basilisk's' final attack.
Through blackmail and a threatening villain speech uttered in the corridor leading to the Chamber of Secrets, Harry manages to recruit an unwilling Lockhart to his cause. While Hermione and Hera keep the man busy, he goes to the Forbidden corridor on the third floor and conquers the many hurdles until finding the Mirror of Erised containing the Philospher's Stone. Having only intended to save, not use it, Harry hands the stone to Quirrell for safekeeping. The third task Harry set for that day, claiming the Elder wand, fails as he reaches the Ministry a few minutes after Dumbledore's arrest is cancelled, delaying the opportunity to unite all Hallows.
The delay does not make Harry give up on this goal. Although he enjoys an early holiday abroad, Harry already schemes the next attempt. A scheme that he needs to put on hold for a few days longer when upon returning to London, Voldemort stands on his doorstep. Harry is forced to reveal most of his lies towards his godfathers and has several deep talks and arguments with his Intended that ultimately bring them much closer. Thanks to Voldemort's last courting gift , a potion set to age his body to the exact point before Harry travelled back in time, Harry can finally enjoy the feel of having a familiar adult body again, while at the same time getting his points more prominently across to his godfathers, who promise to keep an open mind. The freedom that giving up on the lie in front of his family brings enables Harry to ask Voldemort for aid in getting the last Hallow. Together, they devise a new plan, which involves confronting Dumbledore while being under influence of Felix Felicis.
Harry calls upon his newest follower to be brought to Slughorn, who lets Harry complete a test to win the potion. With luck in his veins, Harry manages to initially convince Dumbledore of having good intentions and is led into the Headmaster's office. It is only when the Elder wand lies in Harry's hands and Dumbledore reveals his own soulmate is Grindelwald in a desperate move to convince Harry not to take a path of darkness, that the situation escalates to the point of having to flee the castle. Having said too much, including stating the intention to become the Master of Death, Harry finds shelter at Voldemort's house - who is ecstatic to have him. The only present Death Eater, Barty Crouch, is ordered to bring Hermione and Sirius to safety so Harry has enough peace of mind to concentrate on uniting the Hallows.
When accepting Voldemort's marriage proposal with the Ring of Resurrection, Harry finally does so -
- and a hostile Death appears to shake their world, fashioning Harry into more than a mere man.
AN: I hope this summary was comprehensible and covered enough important aspects to make a re-read of Book 1 not necessary to read the sequel.
