Destiny Reversed

Chapter 21 Destiny

Harry woke up.

He was in his own room at Number 4, Privet Drive, surrounded by a preening Hedwig, Hermione's neatly rolled up sleeping bag and Ron's wrinkled one, sunlight streaming through the window and Muggle novels lining the bookcase. He reached for his glasses and found that they were on the other side, the opposite side of the bed at his home with the Potters, with Lily and James and Violet. With his family.

It didn't feel like his room anymore, not this cold, undecorated room that lay above the scent of bacon already sizzled and eaten, above the atmosphere of grumbling resentment. He missed his Quidditch poster, the familiarity and comfort of pillow fights and pranks.

Oh, wait, except all of that was in his head, wasn't it? Sodding spell.

Harry flexed his palm, noting the faint reprimand of "I must not tell lies" etched on his hand once again. He was the Boy-Who-Lived, the Chosen One once more –but hadn't he always been? In spirit, in the vivid world constructed in his mind. But he's had vivid dreams before –he hated the idea, but it made sense, didn't it? He'd never had a sister, never had a real blood family after the age of one. He had Hermione and Ron and the Weasleys and Remus. He'd had Sirius, and it made his chest ache to think he'd never see him laugh again, made his head hurt that he was mourning him all over again.

But what made him hurt the most was thinking how he'd never again taste his mother's pancakes or share a joke with his father. Hell, he'd take the lectures and the "are you on drugs" talk if only he'd see them again. It had never ached this much before. Never.

He used to sit in his cupboard under the stairs and summon nostalgia for parents tragically dead, tragically young. When he was little, he had idolized them and wished for their resuming embrace and a mother's kiss as they took him away from his prison. But as he lay there on the bed of Dudley's second bedroom, he instead longed for their passionate imperfections just as much as the crystal perfect moments. He wanted his father's slightly undercooked pasta, so unlike Aunt Petunia's perfectly shaped specimens, and even their fights. He wanted to slam the door in their faces and make up later, sulking as he did so. He wanted the normality that came with his family, the pleasantly quiet breakfasts and security.

But he no longer has that. And neither does his sister.

He leapt up in alarm as his door slammed open, scrambling to his feet as he pointed his wand at –a laughing Ron and Hermione.

"Harry!" Hermione's smile was wide and sincere. "You're up!"

"Finally," Ron added. "We tried to bloody wake you up five times! You mumbled something about flowers, and –"

Oh, Violet had said it'd only been a night and a morning, hadn't she?

"What time is it?"

"Time to put on some pants, mate." Ron threw a pair of jeans at him. "Seriously, Harry, you were completely out."

"Feels like I've slept for half a year."

That was a lie. He felt like crap. But even now, the feelings were fading away into memory, into something not quite real, not quite tangible.

Hermione was looking at him shrewdly. He'd forgotten how perceptive she was. "Harry, did something happen?"

He really wondered if it had, if it had just been a very, very realistic dream. But dreams don't hurt. Reality does.

Looking at them, at the two best friends who had been through hell and back with him, Harry realized that he couldn't protect them by hiding that aching hole he felt in his chest, because it would eventually be them who patched it up. It would be them who would search for him after this was all over, trusting and hoping that Harry Potter had once again gotten himself out of a tight scrape. But his knee still hurt from the spell that had not caught and burned a hole through his jeans, had not hurt him. In his past dreams he had always been invincible, and even when nightmares of failures, veils and tall towers invaded his mind, he could reason it away into intangible threats.