Parallel Dreams
Chapter 11- To Live
Beta'd by Allamensia
Notes: Sorry this chapter has taken so long... originally this chapter had an entirely different content, but then I realized that the stuff I had written really didn't belong here. I switched it to (what is now planned as) part of chapter 18. So I then had to write an entirely new chapter 11, which in my original plans was a mix of 12 and 13... needless to say, my notes on this chapter now consist of far too many arrows and side notes.
"Because regardless of what you think of me, I do understand."
Even as Harry felt his feet hit ground, he felt like he couldn't stand at all. Far too many emotions and thoughts were running through his mind, giving him a headache. He shook his head, looking around and watching for movement.
Draco's face went white as he saw Harry Apparate nearby. He moved slowly over to the other boy. "Aren't you supposed to be in lockdown at St. Mungo's?"
Harry shrugged, leaning against a tree and trying to look as though he didn't have a care in the world. "I was. Got out. Is there a problem with that?"
The blonde stared for a moment before looking beyond Harry. "Not to me, no..."
"What the hell are you doing here?" Snape snapped, walking angrily towards the boys.
Harry swore under his breath and stepped away from the tree, putting his hand on his wand. "Why do you care? What does it matter to you? I'm not in the insane ward; I thought someone would be happy about that."
Judging by his face, happy would be the last thing to call Snape. He looked absolutely livid. "Why the hell are you back here after the stunt you pulled at the Ministry?"
Harry started to laugh, although it sounded hollow even to him. "Thought you would have enjoyed not dying, Professor. Thought I may as well stick up for-"
"The fact that you tried to kill yourself, Potter!" Snape yelled. "The fact that you went for that bloody veil with that look in your eyes!"
"What look in my eyes?" Harry demanded, his eyes narrowing at the assault. "I wasn't going to jump through the damned thing. I just wanted to touch it, to feel the other side, to see if maybe it was possible to hold my parent's hands again since you made it pretty damned impossible by having them killed!"
Silence fell over the area.
Snape closed his eyes tightly and stepped back, leaning against a wall. Harry could almost hear him mentally screaming the numbers one to ten in an attempt to calm down.
After a few minutes, Snape opened his eyes and glared murderously towards Harry. He had never seen the look in the older man's eyes so venomous.
"Get the hell out of here, Potter," he whispered. "Don't come back, don't talk to me, don't even say my name ever again. Just get out."
"Why are you so afraid?" Harry taunted, without even really knowing why. All he knew was that he wanted to feel, wanted to experience some emotion, and fighting had always brought that to him. "You are the one who sold them out to Voldemort, you know. You gave the prophecy to him, as well as killing my father yourself. And my mother, too. You were friends with her, weren't you? I'm sure that she's watching you from heaven right now, cursing the very day you showed your cowardly head at--"
Harry stopped short as Snape's wand flew up to his face, shaking dangerously.
"Get out of here. If I see you back here again, I swear to Merlin I won't hesitate to kill you."
He knew that Snape wasn't kidding, but at the same time, he didn't care anymore.
"Go ahead, murder me. It wouldn't be the first time you've used that curse now, would it?" He raised his own wand to Snape, smiling mockingly.
The fire in the older man's eyes seemed to burn out. He lowered his wand and shook his head slowly. "You want to fight me, don't you?"
Harry felt his anger rising as Snape's fell. "I want you to suffer for what you did! I want you to feel the pain that everyone you made suffer felt! You killed Dumbledore and my parents and all those others as a bloody Death Eater! You tortured and killed and played everyone! You deserve to die, Snape! You deserve to rot in hell for everything you've done!" He shoved his wand into Snape's face. "Fight me! Tell me that I'm wrong and that everything is wrong and that you're right and that everything's wrong like you used to do..."
It took a moment for him to realize that there were tears blinding him.
"Are you going to attack me or not," he yelled, shaking the wand.
Snape shook his head slowly, taking a step back and looking away. "If you're going to stay here, then all I ask is that you not get angry towards the Malfoys. Take out your anger elsewhere and don't bother the innocents--"
"None of you are innocent! You all deserve to die for casting that curse..."
He stopped short.
He couldn't feel his body below him. He couldn't feel his arms. He was completely numb; completely exhausted to the point where nothing mattered except the one thing in front of him...
"Do it, Potter," Voldemort had whispered, a mocking smile on his face despite the broken wand in front of him. "Do it. Kill me. Fulfill the prophecy, boy, if you can... it takes a man to use that curse, someone with a dark enough heart... are you dark enough to kill me like this?"
And he had done it. He had said the curse as Voldemort's eyes grew wide, in complete disbelief that the innocent form in front of him had the corruption enough to use the killing curse…
Snape stared long and hard at the boy. He knew that look, the look of self-loathing that came from the use of the worst of the Unforgivable Curses. He'd seen it every time he looked in the mirror, every time he had to reflect on all that he had done. As scary as it was, he saw that part of him, the lost soul, reflected in Potter's eyes. He knew that all Potter wanted was to fight, to feel, to experience some sort of emotion that would make him feel more human.
He also knew that there was no cure for that feeling; at least, not one that he had been able to find in the past twenty years. For the first time, Severus Snape felt pity for Harry Potter.
Harry watched as Snape turned and walked to his house where the Malfoys all stood watching the proceedings. He didn't trust himself to speak. He felt as he had after the trials—completely out of control and as though nothing would be better than to just forget everything in the world. The anger he had felt had disappeared as soon as the memory of Voldemort came to his mind.
The final battle... he hadn't let himself think about it, not that he had had time in the last three days. There had been a mess of trials and attempts to get life back to normal, not that it ever would be normal, he realized with a feeling of dread. Not that he even knew what normal was.
He didn't want to think about the end.
With a heavy weight in his chest, Harry nodded to Snape's receding form and Apparated away.
It didn't take much effort to move past the shabby wards around Hogwarts. There wasn't much threat now, Harry assumed, so the Order hadn't cared much about protective measures—especially now that there were no students to worry about within its walls.
Hogwarts... he had been there the day after the battle, but at that point he had been too far out of his mind to take into consideration its state.
Trees and landscape were all gone, simply ripped from the ground with spells and giants. The grass which had once been lush and green was now brown from fire, mixed in with ash and charcoal that rose up from the ground with each step taken. As Harry moved to Dumbledore's monument, he hesitated—he knew that it wasn't intact, he had seen one of the Death Eaters throw a curse at it towards the beginning of the battle. All the same, he wasn't prepared to see the mess of broken marble where the memorial had once stood.
If he had any more tears to cry, they would have fallen right there and then. But instead he stood there just watching as ash blew softly over the white marble of Albus Dumbledore's tomb.
The castle itself was visibly worse for the wear, however after the shock of Dumbledore's tomb, Harry had steeled himself enough to simply keep walking as he took note of the crumbling walls. It would take a lot of effort and some time to repair the castle... at least a year, Harry estimated in his head, before students would be able to return. So next September would be out of the question, and even when it did open, how many people would return? How many people would be too old or would find it too late to start?
Taking care to avoid the few people milling about, Harry made his way to the Room of Requirement. He held the bag of sleeping pills close to himself as to ensure that they didn't clang against one another as he slunk down the hallway.
Everything was unusually quiet. Usually at Hogwarts the ghosts moved from hallway to hallway, speaking in hushed tones while odd creaks and groans came from nooks and corners, but now not even the quietest noises were heard. It was as though even the magic had left the walls of the great school, realizing that there was nothing left to hold onto any longer.
Once Harry entered the Room of Requirement he moved over to the bed, sitting down and staring at the wall in front of him. Memories floated by—memories of the battles they had fought, of the pain they had endured, of the loss they had faced. He wanted nothing more than for all of it to just go away, to fade into nothing. Hogwarts itself seemed like a symbol of all that happened in the last two years, how everything had gone from calm and how it had always been to completely destroyed, never again to be the same...
He picked up his bag and pulled out a bottle of the sleeping potion. As he raised it to his mouth he thought of the final battle and the pain that they had faced to get there, and how he would almost have wished to die there rather than to be where he was right now.
"--wasn't exactly planned! Do you think I expected him to show up at my doorstep and demand our son? For God's sake, Lily, think! I don't want you mad at me! I just wanted him out of here, and then Harry starts in with him..."
Harry sat up and stared at the doorway. He couldn't hear his mother's voice, but by the tone of his dad's, he could tell that the day hadn't calmed either of them down.
"Of course not! But do you really want Riddle on our doorstep next? Sorry, but I'd rather not incur his wrath, especially this close to the elections!"
Leaning heavily on his cane, Harry made his way down the hall towards his parents. They both stopped as they saw him, staring oddly. "Why are you grinning like mad?"
"It's just so good to have the two of you around," Harry laughed. "Even fighting. You don't have any idea what it's like to go though life without having parents there."
"Well, I'm sure that Vernon and Petunia treated you fairly," Lily said calmly, ignoring James who was making faces behind her back. "Perhaps not equal to Dudley, but fairly all the same."
Harry smiled, not giving her an answer. Lily took this as a yes and turned back to James. "You had a surprise for Harry?"
James grinned, looking over to Sirius and nodding. "Can't tell either of you. You just have to trust us."
"Trusting you two is like trusting a Great White not to attack at the scent of blood," Lily muttered. "Any games and I swear you won't be getting dinner for weeks."
Sirius burst out laughing. "The woman threatens your bed and your food, Prongs... you really chose a winner."
"Who's the one who sleeps on his best friend's couch when he's in his mid-thirties?"
This time it was Lily who burst into laughter as Sirius glared at his friend. Even Harry couldn't help but laugh. He could for the first time understand the stories he'd heard of his father and Sirius: they were closer than he had been to his friends, despite their constant presence around one another at school. It was as though his dad and Sirius were more than just friends—as though they were brothers with all the fighting and love that the title entailed. In some ways, Harry felt bad for his mother: whereas he could tell his father loved her, his bond with Sirius was that much closer. She seemed to be using all her energy simply to fit in with the two of them.
James looked down at his watch, his grin growing larger. "It's almost time. Sirius, you want to wait outside?"
"There will be no need for Sirius to wait for me, James. I do hope that after all these years, I remember the way around your home."
Though it had hurt to see his parents and Sirius for the first time, seeing Dumbledore walk out from the shadows was the greatest pain Harry could have felt. He wanted nothing more at than moment than to tell the Headmaster that they had won, that he had reconciled with Snape, that the war was over...
Harry forced a smile as Dumbledore turned his gaze upon him, full of curiosity. "Harry Potter! How good it is to finally be able to speak with you. From the moment I heard about your miraculous recovery I wanted to leave the school and fly out here to meet you. However, James assured me that I would have my chance... I suppose it is lucky that I was able to get a last minute flight out here before you left for Voldemort, isn't it?"
Had Harry not known the Headmaster better, he would have missed the flash in his eyes—a flicker of mistrust and dislike at the mention of Riddle's corporation.
Lily apparently didn't miss the look either. "Severus practically lives at Voldemort, and I trust he will see to Harry's needs what Riddle doesn't."
"I'm not worried about Riddle," Dumbledore said calmly. He walked over to the table and sat down, staring at Harry. "He can ill afford to make any moves against a family as powerful as your's. I'm more worried about the moves Crouch will make against both Voldemort and you, using Harry."
As touched as he was that he had people looking out for him for the first time, Harry felt a bit uneasy with the watchful eyes. He was used to dealing with things on his own and keeping his feelings to himself, minus the few times when Hermione caught on and tried to pry from him what he was trying to keep bottled up. "I'll be alright."
His mother nodded absentmindedly and joined Dumbledore at the table. James and Sirius followed suit, Sirius grabbing something out of the fridge on the way. "You coming?"
Harry sat down wearily, nerved by the eyes all on him. "Look, Snape was right, I owe Riddle for what he did to help me. The least I can do is to help with some research. Besides, how long can this all take?"
"Most likely around three or four months," Dumbledore said softly, his eyes turning suddenly to watch James.
"So he will be with Voldemort until the elections are over," James stated. He looked at his son. "I don't care what he says; you're going to be with us the night of the voting. And you'd better not be asleep all day like you have been lately."
An odd feeling of foreboding filled Harry. He should have known that this was coming; he'd been in this world almost a week now and his sleep schedule still allowed for him to be awake during the day in the other world and the night with his parents. Though they'd been quiet on the subject for the most part, there had been no doubt in his mind that they weren't exactly thrilled about their lack of sleep at night in accordance with their son.
"I'll try," he muttered, looking away from his parents and out of the window. "I really will... I think that things are going to be different very soon."
Sirius started grinning. "So you've finally realized that we're real and that they are a dream?"
Although he'd been expecting it since he'd first encountered this world, Harry wasn't ready to answer that question. He just closed his eyes and bit his lip.
An awkward silence filled the room.
Lily sighed. "Harry, it's alright, I know this is hard..."
"No, you don't know," Harry snapped back, his hand hitting the table hard. "You have no idea. You couldn't. You didn't go through all your life with no family, wanting more than anything to just be normal and not have a madman after you, watching as the people you love are killed off one by one in your name. You never wanted something so badly that you would think about ending your life to have it, only to suddenly have it fall into your lap like a bad dream because you know it can't be real, though you want more than anything for it to be real because it would mean everything you wanted was suddenly within reach beyond all limits of the world. You have no idea how much I want this to be real, you really don't, but I've lost every single person sitting in this room. All of you have died for me, in front of me, so that I could go on and live."
He was expecting his mother to respond, but to his surprise, it was Dumbledore who reached out and took Harry's hand in his own.
"So live."
It was as though something inside him snapped. He looked up at each of the people at the table, all staring at him with eyes filled to the brim with pity and love.
"I think I will."
End Part 11/20