Disclaimer: I don't own anything of Harry Potter.

A/N: This idea just came to me. I was bawling as I wrote it. Enjoy.

Molly ran as quickly as she could to the still form of the small boy. The boy everyone hailed as a hero since before he could walk. The boy newspapers had alternately hailed him, then demolished him.

He'd never grown well.

Ron was the same age as Harry and was well taller and seemed to glow with health.

Harry was too small and his complexion could only be described as barely tolerable.

Now, holding his frail, battered form in her arms, she felt her heart breaking at how little she had noticed about the boy in regards to his health.

Ginny at thirteen weighed more than he did now.

For one long, heart rending second, Molly was sure he was dead.

Then, his eyelashes fluttered and his eyelids raised. Barely. But they did.

The emerald green eyes that always took her breath away were brighter than ever before.

But unfocused and vague.

Clouded.

He blinked slowly.

"Mum?" he whispered, blood sputtering out of his mouth with the word.

Frantic, Molly cast the fastest health diagnostic spell of all time.

Only to be horrified at the result.

It should have been physically impossible for Harry to still be alive right now, let alone aware and speaking.

She dropped her wand and hugged the boy carefully, trying to draw out these last seconds as long as she could.

"Mum?" he gasped, sounding broken and confused.

By Merlin, by God, this was evil, but if it comforted him for one second she would never regret it.

"Yes sweetie, it's me," she replied, brushing his hair away from his face with all the love in her heart.

"Mum," the dying savior gasped, "you're my Mum."

And by God, there, sitting in the filth of the most horrendous battle in Wizard history, he smiled so brilliantly that it took Molly's breath away.

It was like light itself dripped from him in sheer joy. Like this was every birthday, Christmas and dream all rolled into one.

"I have a Mum…"

Molly choked, barely forcing the words past her throat, "Of coarse you have me Harry. I've always been here."

"My Mum… my Mum..." he repeated to himself, still beaming.

She cradled him, rocked him soothingly.

"C'n…c'n I slepp Mumm? I'm tir'd…"

Molly held in an inward sob.

"Yes honey. You can sleep. You've had a hard day," she told him gently.

He smiled, a softer one than before that spoke of finally resting.

He settled his head against her shoulder wearily and gave one exhausted sigh and was still.

Molly sobbed with the deep shuddering cries of the lost as she cradled the boy to her.

Beyond everything, Harry Potter had never really been the Boy-Who-Lived, or the Savior of the Wizarding World.

He had always been a little boy, locked in a little cupboard wishing for a Mum.

A light began forming in front of her and to Molly's shock, it formed into a ghostly form of Lilly Potter.

The woman smiled sadly at Molly and reached forward, moving her arms under Harry's body and lifting…

… and pulled away with a peacefully sleeping transparent form of Harry in her arms.

He snuggled into Lilly, but showed no signs of waking.

His true mother held him gently, smiling down at the sleeping boy before looking back up to Molly.

"Thank you," she said.

The words somehow conveyed everything she meant.

She stood and turned to leave, pausing briefly to look back at Molly with the mortal shell of her son.

"I think you should know, he didn't think you were me," she told the other woman, before turning again and disappearing into a soft light.