Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, not me.

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There were many things that Harry would have preferred to be doing. Like playing Quidditch, for instance, or sitting around the Gryffindor house table with Ron and Hermione. But at this point, he would have preferred to be in Potions class with Snape lambasting him than to be where he was.

Right now he was in the waiting room of the Snettering hospital, forced to wait with his purple Uncle Vernon and horsey Aunt Petunia for the doctor to tell them Dudley's status. Harry didn't care too much. "Big D" had decided to pick on a little boy who had four older brothers. They hadn't been too pleased.

"I'm going to walk around," Harry said. His relatives didn't respond. Harry sighed and meandered down the hall. It was quite different from the organized chaos of Saint Mungo's. Everything was hushed and orderly, with a small measure of sadness. People died here, he realized. Death was not something he wanted to think about at the moment. He wandered down the halls, a skinny, lonely boy with dark hair that hung over his bruised green eyes.

"Now, really, Miss Lovegood, this is the second time this month you've come in."

Harry started. His glasses slipped down his nose in surprise.

"You ought to be more careful. How did it happen this time, Miss Lovegood?"

He waited to hear the answer. Maybe it was…

"I fell down the stairs," a soft girl's voice said.

It was Luna.

Harry peeked around the corner. Luna Lovegood was sitting on the chair letting a nurse bandage her wrist. Nasty black bruises peppered her white skin. Luna looked different, not her usual airy dreamweaver look. Her blonde hair was drawn back in a tight braid, and she was wearing ugly, shapeless Muggle clothes. A bandaid was on her right cheek, covering the remains of what looked like a bad laceration. "I really shouldn't be so clumsy," Luna said dreamily.

"No, you most certainly should not!" the nurse said emphatically. "Now you may go. And I don't want to see you here again, understand?" Luna nodded. Harry finally realized why she seemed so different. She was subdued. No butterbeer cork necklace, no wand tucked behind her ear, no roaring lion hat.

Luna slipped off the chair and headed down the hallway, her head down. And she rammed straight into Harry. "Oh, I'm sorry-" she mumbled.

"Luna, what are you doing here?" he said.

Her blonde head shot up. "Oh," she exclaimed. "Harry…I…" Luna bolted.

"Wait, Luna-" He reached for her, and accidentally grabbed her sore right wrist. Luna cried out. "Oh, Luna, I'm sorry," Harry apologized.

"It's all right," she said, sounding more like her dreamy-eyed normal self. Harry relaxed. "I just fell down the stairs and got banged up a bit."

"I really am sorry," he said. "D'you want me to take you home?"

Luna started to walk down the hallway, which Harry belatedly realized was a yes. He ran after her. "Don't worry. I live close by," she said.

"I thought you and your father were going to Sweden for the summer," he said. "To look for…for Crankle-Head Snerts."

"Crumple-horned Snorkacks," Luna corrected gravely.

"Well, why didn't you go?" Harry asked.

"Daddy had other things to do," Luna said simply. "He is the editor of the Quibbler, you know." She walked beside Harry, trying to match his strides. "So why were you at the hospital? You're not sick, are you?"

"Oh, no, I'm fine," he said. "It was my cousin. Dudley. He's a Muggle."

"I don't have any Muggle cousins," Luna said. "I don't have any cousins."

"It's just you and your dad, then?"

She nodded as she walked up the untidy pathway to a crazy looking brick house. "This is where Daddy lives," she said. After a moment she added "And me too, in the summer holidays." Luna paused at the door.

"Well…" Harry stammered.

"Thank you for walking me home," Luna said.

"You're welcome," Harry said. "I'll, eh…I guess I'll see you at Hogwarts when term starts up again."

"Yes," Luna said. She smiled at him. Harry stared at her, openmouthed. Luna was actually pretty when she smiled. But before he could say anything else, she vanished into her house and closed the door behind her.

He didn't see Luna again for three weeks. In the meantime, his existence was rather dull. He wandered around the empty house. He wandered through Diagon Alley getting school supplies. He wandered around Little Whinging. There was nothing to hold his attention. There was nothing to distract him from the memories. There was nothing to dull the pain.

He still had the dreams at night. Now they were even stranger. Fragments of visions tortured him at night, keeping him trapped in nightmares that he could not awake from. He saw his mother, his father, Cedric, Sirius. Everyone.

The night before he left for Hogwarts, the vision was stronger than ever. He was in the graveyard again, but this time it was Sirius's body, not Cedric's, that lay cold and motionless on the ground. Harry was powerless. No sound could escape from him. His scar was throbbing so badly he could barely breathe. He was a frozen prisoner.

It was inevitable. He was going to die. There was nothing he could do. He could feel life slipping away, and it was a terrible thing, even in a dream.

And then something soft and warm touched his cheek. "It's all right," a voice whispered. "You'll be all right." The soft warm touch crept around his hands and held them tightly.

"You're safe," another voice said. "Just hold on to us."

Harry bolted upright, in his bedroom at the Dursley house, with no pain in his scar and a gentle touch still lingering on his fingers.

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