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

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He woke slowly.

Sunlight poured through the curtains. He lay still for a moment, warm beneath the blanket, listening to the hush that always came just before the day began.

He had been dreaming.

He could feel the outline of it, faint and shifting—already beginning to slip away.

A man in a turban, turning toward him. Two faces where there should have been one.

A snake, enormous, gleaming in the dark. A scream. Stone shattering.

A werewolf's eyes in the moonlight. A dark, endless corridor. Cruel, cold laughter.

And a voice—low, steady, and somehow familiar.

"Harry. You need to wake up now."

Harry rubbed his eyes. It was just a dream.

So why did it feel so familiar?

He turned toward the nightstand and reached for his glasses.

The Remembrall was sitting there.

Glowing red.

--

The morning passed like a film playing just slightly out of sync.

Harry got dressed. Ate breakfast. Sat in the garden. Nothing was wrong, not really. The air was warm. The eggs were perfectly cooked. His mother hummed something familiar while she watered the plants. James told him a joke he was sure he'd heard before, though he couldn't remember where.

It was all fine. All normal.

But something was off.

Harry started noticing little things; the newspaper James was reading still bore yesterday's date. A bird flew past the window - and then flew past again, in the same direction, only a minute later. A framed photo stood on the mantlepiece: the three of them, standing on a beach, arms around each other. He didn't remember ever going to the beach. The calendar in the kitchen had no month at the top. Just days, all marked with the same note: "home."

By late afternoon, he was tired. He lay down on the sofa, one arm over his eyes. The wireless played something soft and instrumental. His parents voices drifted in from the kitchen.

He drifted.

Footsteps. Voices, muffled, but clearer than before.

"…still not responding. It's been days."

"He can hear us. I know he can. He just isn't ready."

"You said Occlumency might allow us to—"

"Yes," another voice cut in, sharp but calm. "But we must tread carefully. If we push too hard…"

A pause.

Then softer—

"Harry. If you can hear me… we're here. You need to come back."

He stirred. The voices slipped away like water through fingers.

When he opened his eyes, the room was dark. The wireless was off. The fire had burned low. His parents sat on the armchairs nearby, speaking in low tones. They stopped when they saw he was awake.

"You nodded off," James said, smiling. "Must've been tired."

Harry sat up slowly. The blanket someone had tucked around him slid to the floor.

Lily reached over to smooth his hair. "Feeling okay?"

Harry nodded. He blinked, trying to shift the blurriness in his eyes.

When he opened them again, he was in the bathroom, washing his hands in the sink. He paused for a moment - when had he gone upstairs? He quickly dried his hands on a towel and walked out onto the landing. On the wall opposite the bathroom, there was a small, ornate mirror hung on the wall. He hadn't noticed it before.

He took a step towards it without meaning to.

The mirror was oval-shaped, framed in dark, carved wood. Nothing magical about it. Just a mirror. Just his own reflection.

But something in him stilled.

The hallway behind him, his own face in the glass—it all looked right. And yet it didn't. The light was too still. The lines too sharp. His own eyes looked back at him like they were waiting for him to understand something.

Then it came.

Not all at once. But like breath fogging against cold glass, then slowly clearing.

Stone floors. A golden frame. Dust beneath his feet. His parents, smiling behind him.

He stared at his reflection. At the hallway behind him. At the shape of the house around him.

And he knew.

He wasn't home.

He never had been.

--

The weight of the realisation sat heavy in Harry's chest.

He let out a breath. It shook, just slightly.

James called up from downstairs, cheerful as ever.

"Harry? Dinner's ready!"

Harry didn't answer. Not right away.

His bedroom door was ajar. Through it, he could see his dresser. Perched on top was the Remembrall. The red smoke was gone, replaced by slow, grey tendrils drifting gently behind the glass.

--

Harry sat curled up on the sofa, watching the fire flicker in the grate. James was sprawled in the armchair, snoring quietly. Lily sat beside him, head tilted back against the cushion, eyes closed. Harry leaned into her.

His throat felt tight.

He wanted to stay.

He wanted this to be real. The quiet. The comfort. The steady rhythm of his mother's breathing beside him.

When the knock came, it was quiet. Just three short raps on the door.

James stirred. Lily opened her eyes. Harry didn't move.

The door opened without a sound.

Snape's gaze shifted over the room — the fire, the soft armchairs, the boy curled up beside his mother. His expression didn't change, but something in his posture softened.

"Potter," he said quietly. "It's time."

"I know," Harry said quietly, his voice thick. He closed his eyes against the tears threatening to spill.

"Just a few more minutes."

There was a pause. The fire crackled softly.

"You can't stay here much longer," Snape said.

Harry didn't speak. He couldn't. He looked down at the blanket covering his lap. His hands were shaking, just slightly.

"You are wasting away," Snape continued, voice low, even. "You've been here too long, your body is beginning to fail. This world is… holding you, yes. But it is also killing you."

Lily took Harry's hand again. Her grip was warm and steady. "We know," she said, gently.

Harry looked between them — his mother's face, James's quiet sorrow, Snape standing there like a shadow.

Snape spoke again. "If you stay here, you will die."

He didn't say it cruelly. It wasn't a threat, or a reprimand. Just a truth.

Harry turned to his mother.

Tears shone in her eyes. She reached up and brushed his hair gently from his forehead, just as she had that first morning.

"It's okay," she said, her voice steady, though not quite strong. "Everything's going to be okay, sweetheart. You are so much stronger than you know."

She leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then wrapped her arms around him. He pressed his face into her shoulder and let his eyes close. The scent of her—something warm and familiar—made his chest ache.

James came to sit on the edge of the sofa, resting a hand on Harry's shoulder. "We love you so much, Harry. More than you will ever know. But you can't stay here." His voice wobbled slightly as he spoke, and he squeezed Harry's shoulder gently.

Harry stood slowly. His legs felt distant, like they barely belonged to him.

He turned to Snape. His voice was barely more than a whisper when it came. "I don't want to go."

Snape inclined his head slightly. "I know."

--

It was quiet outside. The night air was cool. Trees lined the cobbled lane, swaying gently in the breeze. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called.

They walked in silence, Harry's parents on either side of him, holding his hands like he was child. Harry didn't feel like a child though. He felt impossibly old. His limbs moved, but his mind drifted. He was walking through the village where he'd grown up, except he hadn't.

The further they went, the softer everything became — the houses, the hedges, the orange glow of the street lamps. As though the world around them was slowly dissolving.

And still, he wanted to stop.

He wanted to turn and run back through the quiet streets, into the house with the creaky floorboard on the stairs and the mismatched mugs and the photo on the mantle of a day he'd never lived.

He wanted to stay.

But he couldn't.

Because it wasn't real — not the house, not the garden, not the feeling of being safe. Not his mother's hands smoothing back his hair. Not James's laughter from behind the paper.

And yet—

It felt real.

That was the cruelty of it.

Every heartbeat, every breath, every glance from his mother — it had all meant something. And now he would lose it, not like someone waking from a dream, but like someone tearing themselves away from everything they'd ever wanted.

He clenched his jaw.

He didn't want to cry again.

But the grief sat heavy in his chest, sharp as anything he'd ever felt. Worse than he'd expected. Because it wasn't just about leaving — it was about knowing what he could have had. What he should have had. Parents who loved him. A life where he belonged.

Not a cupboard.

Not war.

Not years of fighting and fear and loss.

Up ahead, the air began to shimmer. Just faintly — like heat over tarmac. The ripple of something thin and fragile.

He slowed.

His parents didn't speak.

They walked with him, right to the edge. Their hands were still in his, warm and steady.

The street behind them was nearly gone now. Just light and haze and shadows.

James turned to him first. He didn't say anything for a long moment. Just looked at Harry, his eyes full of things too big to name.

Then he cupped Harry's face with both hands and pressed a kiss to his forehead. His voice, when it came, was quiet and thick with the tears he didn't shed.

"Go on now," he said softly. "It's alright."

Harry's mouth trembled. He nodded, once.

Lily wrapped her arms around him. She didn't say don't go. She didn't tell him to stay.

She just kissed his cheek, brushed the tears from his face with her thumb.

"We'll be with you," she said softly. "Always."

And then she stepped back.

Harry turned, slowly.

Snape stood a few feet away, half in shadow.

Harry's voice was barely audible. "Will it hurt?"

Snape held his gaze. "Yes," he said. "But it will pass."

Harry looked one last time over his shoulder. His parents stood side by side. Their arms wrapped around each other. Still watching him. Still smiling.

He wanted to remember that.

Not their faces exactly, but the way it felt to be theirs.

A hand pressed gently to his back — not pushing, just there.

Harry took a breath.

And stepped forward.

The air shimmered around him. Warm, then cold. The scent of grass, then something sterile and sharp. Light fractured. The ground shifted beneath his feet—

And the world fell away.

XXX

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