Disclaimer - I do not own Harry Potter, all characters belong to JK Rowling :)

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Sunlight filtered through the curtains.

It was the first thing he noticed. Soft, dust-speckled, warm. The kind of morning light that felt like it belonged to summer, and to home.

Harry blinked.

The ceiling above him was white, uneven. Wooden beams crossed overhead. There was a slant to the roof, and the faint sound of birdsong drifted in through an open window. The smell of toast wafted up from downstairs.

He sat up slowly.

He was in a bedroom. Small, slanted-roofed, with an array of Quidditch posters pinned to the walls and his Cleansweep propped against the corner. A chest of drawers stood along one side, an array of chocolate frog cards scattered across the top like they'd been left mid-sort. A dusty Remembrall sat off to the side, its glass filled with soft, swirling red smoke. The sight of it gave Harry a faint, uneasy feeling in his stomach. He wondered vaguely what he could have forgotten.

His glasses lay folded neatly on the nightstand. He reached for them automatically, slid them on—and froze.

There were voices downstairs. Laughter.

Voices he recognised.

His feet were moving before he realised it, legs slightly unsteady under him. He opened the door to the hallway beyond and stood for a second on the landing.

The scent of toast was stronger now. And tea. Something fried. It wrapped around him like a memory, warm and impossible.

He descended the stairs.

The living room opened out before him. Cosy. Worn. Books stacked under tables, a knitted throw draped over the back of the sofa. Slippers by the fireplace.

In the kitchen, his mother turned at the sound of his footsteps.

"Morning, love," she said, like she had a hundred times before. Like she'd been doing it all his life.

And James looked up from the table, half-smiling through a mouthful of toast. "Sleep well?"

Harry wasn't sure why his eyes stung at the sight of them. He blinked the tears away, smiled, nodded.

Lily walked over. Brushed his hair back like she'd done it a thousand times. Kissed the top of his head.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," she said, smiling.

He didn't say anything. Just sat down. The chair was warm. Suddenly there was a plate in front of him, a cup of tea already poured.

Everything was normal.

And yet something in him, very quietly, hurt.

--

Midway through breakfast, a small tawny owl tapped at the window, a short stack of letters clutched in its beak. James stood to open the window. The owl hopped inside without hesitation, fluttering down onto the table. It settled beside Harry's plate and dropped the letters with a soft clatter. He glanced down. His name was written on the top envelope in Ron's untidy scrawl; beneath it, another letter was addressed to him in Hermione's neat, looping cursive.

His stomach gave a strange little lurch, though he couldn't have said why.

"Hello, Hedwig," Lily said warmly, reaching over to stroke her feathers. The owl gave a contented hoot. Harry offered her a piece of bacon from his plate, which she took delicately, then gave his finger an affectionate nip before spreading her wings and flying back out through the open window.

--

They must have gone out into the garden.

Harry wasn't sure when it had happened. One moment, he was drying a plate with a tea towel while Lily hummed beside him at the sink, and the next, he was sitting in a wooden chair beneath a flowering tree, the sun warm on his arms.

He blinked, once, twice.

James was a few feet away, slouched in a lawn chair with the Daily Prophet folded across his knee, glasses perched halfway down his nose. Lily knelt at the flowerbed, coaxing something green and delicate out of the soil.

It didn't feel strange, exactly. Just slightly misaligned, like a step missed on the stairs.

A breeze passed through the garden, stirring the grass. Bees hummed somewhere nearby. A gnome darted between the hedges and vanished.

Harry leaned back in the chair and let his eyes drift shut for a moment.

Everything smelled like warm earth and grass and sunlight. He should have felt completely at peace; but there was that faint, persistent pull in his chest again.

He opened his eyes.

Across the lawn, James laughed softly at something in the paper.

A bird swooped overhead. Harry watched it until it disappeared into the sky.

Then, without quite deciding to, he stood and went back inside.

The house was quiet. Afternoon light spilled across the floor of the sitting room. A soft crackle came from the wireless in the corner, playing something low and instrumental.

He paused near the bookshelf.

The Remembrall was there — perched on the edge of a middle shelf, between a dog-eared copy of Quidditch Through the Ages and a green glass jar of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.

Its smoke was still red.

He stared at it. The colour pulsed faintly behind the glass, thick and slow, like something alive. He waited, half-expecting it to clear — to reveal whatever it was he'd forgotten.

It didn't.

He thought, vaguely, that it had been upstairs earlier. But maybe someone had moved it. Or maybe it had always been there.

He turned away.

Lily's voice floated in from the garden.

"Harry? Want some lemonade?"

He blinked. "Yeah. Coming."

The Remembrall stayed where it was, glowing quietly red.

--

Harry was walking down a narrow lane.

The garden, the lemonade, the house—gone, folded away like a page turned without him noticing. Now the sun was lower in the sky, the air a little cooler. A breeze lifted the edges of his sleeves.

Lily was beside him, holding a paper bag from the corner shop. "You always used to beg for these," she said, smiling as she handed him a sugar quill from the top. "Still your favourite?"

Harry took it, fingers closing automatically around the wrapper. "Yeah," he said, after a beat. "I think so."

The village green came into view. A few children were playing under the trees. Someone was flying a kite, its tail whipping lazily in the wind.

Lily nudged him gently with her shoulder. "Go on, I'll catch you up."

He hesitated, then made his way over to the edge of the field. A boy sat on the grass nearby, wand in hand, poking at a pile of twigs. Red sparks burst from the end.

Harry blinked. The wand flickered.

Just for a moment, it looked wrong—fuzzy at the edges, half-there. Then it was normal again. Wooden. Harmless. The boy didn't seem to notice.

A faint buzzing had started in his ears, like radio static.

Harry turned to say something to his mum—ask if she'd seen it—but she was already halfway across the green, speaking to someone he didn't recognise.

He looked down at the sugar quill in his hand. It was half gone. He didn't remember eating any of it.

--

Harry wasn't sure how the afternoon had slipped past so quickly—only that the light had changed, and his arms were a little pink from the sun.

The kitchen was clean, quiet. A new cup of tea steamed gently on the table, like someone had only just set it down. The stack of letters was still where Hedwig had dropped them, now slightly askew.

He sat down and picked up the top envelope.

Ron's handwriting. Uneven, sprawling. Familiar.

He opened it carefully and unfolded the parchment inside.

Hey mate,

How's your holiday going? It's been brilliant not having any homework for a change, I reckon I could get used to it. Mum's been a bit mad lately, so I've been camping out in the shed with Pig and trying not to get roped into de-gnoming the garden.

Anyway, I hope you're doing alright—must be nice being back home with your mum and dad. Write back soon, yeah?

—Ron

Harry read it through, smiling faintly. Then he reached for the next envelope.

Hi Harry,

I hope everything's going well, and that you're getting a bit of quiet. Things here have been fine, more or less. I've been practicing that vanishing charm Flitwick started teaching us before the end of term; do you remember that afternoon we ended up in the corridor outside Charms, when Neville was carrying his mimbulus mimbletonia back from Herbology and Ron decided to poke it? You laughed so hard you dropped your bag, and I had to Vanish all the slime before Filch saw. I don't think I've ever seen Ron look more horrified.

Tell your parents I said hello.

Love,

Hermione

Harry paused, the letter resting lightly in his hands.

He didn't remember it. Not right away.

Then—maybe he did.

A flash: stone corridors, laughter, Neville carrying an ugly, catus-looking plant, Ron doubled over, the walls, floor, and all their robes covered in foul smelling liquid, Hermione waving it away with her wand just as Filch turned the corner. His own voice, breathless with laughter.

It felt real, but not quite his. Like something he'd read in a book, rather than lived.

He folded the letters slowly and set them down beside his tea.

The Remembrall on the windowsill was still glowing red.

--

He didn't remember getting ready for bed.

One moment he was in the kitchen, folding the letters back into their envelopes, and the next he was in his room again, under the covers. The curtains stirred in the breeze from the cracked window. The air smelled like grass and something faintly sweet.

His room was dim. A soft strip of light spilled in from the hallway. Lily stood in the doorway.

"Goodnight, love," she said, and smiled at him like she had every night of his life.

She blew him a kiss, and gently pulled the door almost shut behind her.

Harry closed his eyes.

Sleep came almost instantly.

XXX

Thanks for reading! Take care 3