Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Chapter Fifteen: New Beginning

Several more weeks had passed since Albus had told Millicent Bagnold of Voldemort's return. A few days after having his memories retrieved by Albus, Harry had moved back into his bedroom. It was strange, sleeping in his own bed again, amongst all his clothes and toys and other possessions. It had felt- in the first few nights- almost as if nothing had changed, when in reality everything had.

The first day after returning to his room, Hagrid had come up to the castle to see Harry- a time Harry had cherished and enjoyed more than anything since his rescue. There was something so natural about being with Hagrid, who hadn't pushed or asked any questions or even made any indication that anything had happened save for giving Harry a tearful, slightly more gentle hug upon seeing him. Hagrid had also gifted Harry a book on dragons, which Harry had spent hours reading and re-reading. It had pictures, which he loved, and the text wasn't too hard to understand. But best of all, it distracted him from his thoughts.

Slowly, very slowly, life was returning to how it had been before.

The only thing that was different was that instead of running through the castle, occasionally sitting in classes or exploring new sections he'd never been in before, Harry had stayed mostly in Albus' quarters. The school year had begun a week earlier, and the castle was once more filled with hundreds of loud, excited children. And Harry had tried to avoid people and crowds as much as possible. He didn't want to talk, or have people stare at him (especially the new first years). He just wanted quiet.

Harry had attended The Sorting, however. After much assurance that everything would be fine by Albus and Aunt Minnie, he had agreed to go, and it hadn't been as bad as Harry had thought it would be. He had sat in between them, as he always did, and the rest of the teachers had mostly acted normal, cheerfully greeting Harry and gently offering him different plates of food during dinner. It was the first time most of them had seen him in weeks. The only person Harry had tried to ignore was Professor Snape. The man had approached him earlier on in the day and stiffly apologized for what had happened. The entire time Harry had been beside Albus, but he'd still panicked as memories of the events were thrust to the forefront of his thoughts, memories that he was constantly trying hard to push aside and forget about. Snape had thankfully kept it short and left almost immediately after speaking, but the image of him standing over Harry, wand raised, had lingered for several minutes afterwards. Albus had explained to Harry that Snape was on their side, and that he had been forced to hurt him- something which he'd definitely not wanted to do- but Harry could not stop thinking about it. . . remembering. The Death Eaters, Voldemort. . . they were all bad. Snape, Snape wasn't bad, but he'd done bad things. And Harry couldn't understand that, even though the rational part of his mind knew it was fine.

Harry had also gone for a short walk around the Black Lake with Albus and Aunt Minnie. He hadn't seen the Giant Squid, but he'd enjoyed looking at the calm, smooth surface of the water and attempting to skip several pebbles. It had been in the middle of the day, of course, just before lunch. Harry had not gone outside a single time during the night. He hadn't been afraid of the dark before, but now a walk across the grass at any point after dusk meant shadows and cloaked figures and pain. He just couldn't.

Harry hugged his knees with his arms and stared at the flames burning in the fireplace in front of him. He had woken up in the early hours of the morning from a nightmare, screaming and crying hysterically. Voldemort had been there, as he was almost every time. But it was dangerous to take the Dreamless Sleep potion for extended periods of times, and Harry had to go without most nights. He felt more comfortable in his bedroom, and his dreams weren't as bad as before when he was still in the Hospital Wing, but at least twice a week the nightmares came. Albus was usually there within a minute, hugging or reading him a story until Harry fell back asleep. But this time the nightmare had been especially bad, and Harry was afraid of going back to bed. So Albus had made him a hot chocolate, and they'd both gone down the stairs into the room at the back of the office to sit in the armchairs by the fire.

'How are you feeling, Harry?' enquired Albus gently. He sat closest to the fireplace, fingers entwined on his lap. Harry gave a small, barely noticeable shrug.

'I don't know,' he whispered, voice wobbling.

'I will be having a staff meeting later on today, after breakfast, but you will be able to stay up here, reading some of your books. Does that sound good?'

'Yeah,' said Harry quietly. 'Can I. . . can I read the one you told me about yesterday?'

'The one about Merlin? Of course.'

Harry nodded slowly, rubbing at his eyes. He was still tired, but he really couldn't go back to sleep. It was too late for that.

Albus stared at Harry sadly. Things were getting better- much better. Harry's physical health had improved rapidly in the past few weeks, enough that Madam Pomfrey only had to check on him about once a week, at most. But it was the mental, psychological stuff Albus was worried about. Although Harry had definitely improved from the first few moments after he'd woken up several days after his rescue- and he was able to walk around and talk almost normally to other people- there was still something missing. Something that had been there before but seemed to have been extinguished, like a light. Albus could only hope that as more time passed, Harry would continue to grow stronger and return to his usual, happy and energetic self. It had to happen. How long that would take though, was a whole other story.

A/N: Hello everyone! And that's it! Nightmare Most Real is finished, yay! Didn't turn out as great as I'd hoped, but I don't think it's too bad, and there are parts I'm quite proud of :D

However, it's not the end of the story yet! I will definitely be writing a THIRD part very soon, hopefully posting the 1st chapter in the next few days. It will be called 'Silent Enemy' and will be set two years after all of this has happened, when Harry is about to start at Hogwarts, and (I'm hoping) will basically be all about Harry, who is still struggling with what happened, and how the events of the books will change.

So yes. Big thank you to everyone who has followed/reviewed/favourited/read this story, and I hope you go check out the third part when it comes in a few days :)

- StrawberryTrebutchet