Chapter 2
Harry awoke with a start, before remembering the circumstances leading up to this point. He kept his eyes shut, trying not to let them flutter. He slowly let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, body tense, and rigid, for fear of being found out.
He listened for voices, but heard nothing. Was he deaf? He wondered. There had to be voices, there was no way everyone had just left… not without checking that he was dead. Or maybe they had done that already. Maybe he truly was alone. No. Something was wrong. His body felt too...healthy, even for a newly reincarnated person.
He didn’t feel the cold, hard forest floor beneath him. Instead he felt something soft, and warm, cradling his head. And what was that smell? Certainly not pine needles, or blood, or sweat. It smelled like… toast? Harry very slowly and very carefully opened his eyes.
This wasn’t the forest.
His hand instinctively shot up to his forehead, feeling for pain in his scar, but finding none. He was in a bed, he knew that much. He got up slowly regaining his senses, taking in his surroundings, and realizing he was in the Gryffindor boys dormitory.
Was it all a dream then, he wondered? A prophecy perhaps? It can’t have been. It felt all too real, he still felt the pang of loss in his chest.
Fred, Tonks, Lupin… tears welled up in Harry’s eyes and he swallowed a lump in his throat. One problem at a time.
He heard water running in the distance, and turned to his bedside table to pick up his glasses. As he put them on, he noticed a small plate of toast with jam and bacon, and a glass of orange juice on the table and grabbed at it gratefully, suddenly ravenous.
“About time you got up, mate” Ron said, entering their shared dormitory, toweling off his wet hair. “You were out like the dead. Hermione’s been worried sick.”
Harry looked up at his best friend between bites of his breakfast, not really listening to what he was saying.
“Did you get shorter?” He blurted out, the words falling out of his mouth without his permission.
“Oi! I grew 3 inches this summer, what are you talking about?” Ron said back, throwing his towel at Harry. It landed dangerously close to his last piece of toast, which Harry picked up and stuffed into his mouth unceremoniously.
“Sorry,” he shrugged, crumbs falling out of his mouth.
“You’re welcome by the way,” Ron said, nodding at the now empty breakfast plate that sat on Harry’s pajama laden lap. “Thanks,” Harry muttered in response. Whatever was going on was very strange indeed.
“Well, go on then, get ready, quick. Snape’ll have a fit if you’re late again. I’m heading out. See you there, yeah?”
Harry froze. Did Ron just say… “Snape?”
“Bugger, Harry, yeah, Snape. Are you all right? You look pale as a ghost.”
“Yeah,” Harry cleared his throat. “Yeah, fine, sorry. I...just had a weird dream, that’s all. I’ll see you in class.”
Ron nodded, and left the room, and Harry looked at his wristwatch, still sitting on the bedside table. If Snape was alive, Harry needed to see him.
He got dressed in record time and raced down the stairs and out of the dormitory, catching sight of Ron and Hermione down the corridor. He sprinted up to them just as they turned the corner, joining more of their classmates.
“There you are!” Hermione exclaimed, curls flailing as she whipped her head back to look at him.
“Are you feeling alright Harry?”
Before he could say respond, a tall girl with straight Black hair interrupted an out of breath Harry as he fell into pace with his friends. He recognized her as Katie Bell.
“You really should take better care of yourself, Harry,” she said wrinkling her nose.
“Wizarding flu is going around these days, and we can’t afford to lose our Quidditch captain so early in the season.”
Wizarding flu? Harry almost laughed. Why would he be worried about wizarding flu, why were his friends worried about wizarding flu, when the world was clearly upside down?
Why were they at Hogwarts? Was the war over? Had he somehow managed to kill Voldemort, and ended up back in school to complete his seventh year? And how was Snape alive?
What exactly did he sign up for when he boarded that train?
Harry was so lost in thought that he didn’t notice when he had arrived at the potions classroom. He entered cautiously, not knowing what to expect.
He took his place at his regular seat, next to Malfoy who looked less than happy to see him. At least some things still made sense.
The doors to the dungeon classroom closed and Snape walked in with a flourish, pulling up his sleeves gracefully as he took his place at the front of the room.
“You’re alive,” Harry whispered, still unbelieving. Snape looked at him sharply.
“Sorry to disappoint, Potter.”
“Er, sorry professor, I just meant,”
“50 points from Gryffindor. For threatening a teacher’s life. And don’t think Dumbledore won’t be hearing about this.”
“Dumbledore? I-”
“That’s enough, Potter. I must begin with the lesson. See me after class.”
Harry found himself anticipating a mean snicker from Malfoy’s direction, but the other boy was oddly quiet. Harry glared at him anyway, mostly out of habit.
He took no notes during the potions lesson, spending the entire class jotting down ideas about what could possibly explain his current situation. Each one seemed more unlikely than the last.
Dream. No, he crossed that off the list fairly quickly. That would be too easy.
Hallucination. No.
Am I still dead?
Is this hell?
Is this...heaven?
Limbo??
He settled on “Ask Hermione.” just as the class ended. He got up to leave when he remembered he had to stay back to talk to Snape. If this even was Snape. If any of this was even real.
Harry headed to the front of the classroom where Snape was arranging papers at his desk.
“You wanted to see me professor?” He asked uneasily, part of him still not believing Snape was alive and another part worried about losing Gryffindor more points.
“Yes,” Snape said without looking up from his desk.
“I want you to tell your mother I can’t make it to dinner next weekend. Please send my regrets.”
Harry felt his breath catch in his throat.
“My mother…?”
Snape finally looked up from the assignments he was arranging into neat piles on his desk and looked at Harry quizzically.
“Yes, Potter,” he said slowly. “Your mother.” He drew out the words as though that would make them make more sense.
“I’m sorry — sir,” Harry began, before being promptly cut off.
“Well you’d better be off now Potter, I won’t be held responsible for you missing another transfiguration lesson.”
“Right,” Harry said in a daze.
He was halfway out of the classroom when Snape called out after him.
“Oh and Potter?”
“Yes professor?” Harry said turning back quickly, hoping to finally get some answers.
“Do take some ginger root potion, you look like you’re coming down with Wizarding flu.”
**
20 minutes later Harry found himself in the middle of a Transfiguration lesson, still not sure what to make of the words Snape had uttered to him so casually.
“Tell your mother I can’t make it to dinner.”
Was this some kind of cruel joke? Or could his parents actually be…if Snape was alive then perhaps, by some miracle... Harry stopped himself from hoping.
He wondered for a brief moment whether everyone he knew was playing some sort of awful, elaborate prank on him. Or whether he had simply gone mad.
After receiving an icy stare from McGonagall, he decided the question of his sanity would have to wait.
The rest of the lesson went without incident and Harry bolted out of the classroom as quickly as his feet would allow.
Ron and Hermoine will be in the Great Hall by now, he figured, making his way through a crowd of hungry students.
But by the time he got there his friends were nowhere to be seen.
Cautiously, Harry took a seat at the Gryffindor table, steeling himself for what the rest of the day might bring.
A few glances around the hall showed him everything looked just as he remembered it before leaving Hogwarts for his horcrux hunting mission.
Students bustled around their house tables, chatting loudly and laughing as though there was no war, no threat of mass genocide by an evil maniacal arsehole with an inferiority complex.
Pushing thoughts of Voldemort — and whatever was happening to him — away, Harry decided to focus on feeding himself.
He looked down at his plate, grateful to see it magically fill with his favourite foods — treacle tart, chicken pot pie, potatoes. A bit heavy for lunch, but there was no way he was complaining.
He took his time eating, savouring the food. He didn’t remember the last time he had anything close to resembling a meal this good.
Must have been at the Burrow, he thought, feeling a pang of sadness.
He washed down his lunch with pumpkin juice and stood to get up when a moving picture on the front page of the day’s Daily Prophet caught his eye. Someone must have forgotten it at the table at breakfast.
The picture was of him — no surprise there. It was what he was doing that caught his attention.
He was flying on a broom, wearing a Quidditch uniform — Harry couldn’t quite make out which team — smiling triumphantly with the golden snitch flickering in his hand.
HOGWARTS PRODIGY RECRUITED BY PUDDLEMERE UNITED, the headline read. Exclusive interview on page 4.
Harry sat back down, grabbing the paper to read the article.
If the Prophet was to be believed, he spent his summer holidays at a training camp for Puddlemere and it was speculated that he’d be going back during the winter hols in a few weeks time. There was no mention of the war or of Voldemort and even more astonishing, the picture of him, hair flapping in the wind, was missing a distinct lightning shaped scar.
Somewhere in the middle of the article he saw a quote attributed to his “proud parents” but he couldn’t bring himself to keep reading. Instead Harry’s eyes settled on a photo of himself with his parents standing behind him, one of James’ hands on his shoulder while his other arm was draped across Lily’s. They looked for all the world like a normal, happy family.
He suddenly felt sick.
Just as he was gearing up to leave, his friends started piling in beside him. Faces he hadn’t seen in ages. Seamus, Parvati and Padma, Luna and Dean safe and healthy and not locked up in a dungeon. Ginny.
Ginny. Harry gulped. His chest felt tight with guilt and sadness at seeing his former girlfriend. Current girlfriend? He wasn’t sure what they were in this…whatever it was…but he knew he wasn’t ready to face her. Or any of them, really.
Unfortunately, all of this was lost on his friends. Just as he turned to leave he was pulled back down by an insistent Seamus.
“Not so fast superstar!” he laughed in his thick Irish accent.
“Hey Seamus,” Harry managed, finding himself sitting smack dab in the middle of the group.
“Ready for round two with Puddlemere, then?” Seamus asked, nodding at the paper in his hands.
“Sure he is,” Dean said, joining the conversation. “Unless the lads have been working you too hard?”
“Er, no” Harry started, moulding his features into what he hoped looked like a smile. “I mean, yeah. I’m looking forward to it.”
The conversation seemed to go on without him, his friends speculating over his prospects as a pro Quidditch player and going over the stats of current players in the league.
Harry looked around the table, his gaze settling back on Ginny.
She looked good. Happy, even. As though sensing Harry was staring, she turned and met his eyes, flashing him a bright smile before reaching over to grab the paper.
“Bugger, Harry. It looks like you even gave Krum a run for his money last time around,” she said, eyes scanning the article.
Harry’s stomach lurched as he attempted a smile back, unsure of what to say. Or where they stood.
Were he and Ginny still a couple? Or rather, would they become one like they had in his reality (because by now he’d convinced himself he was definitely not in the world he knew) or had they ever even been a thing to begin with?
The answers would have to wait, he decided. He had far more serious things to figure out first.
Harry finally made his escape during Seamus and Dean’s attempts to start a betting pool on whether or not he’d be a full fledged team member by the end of the school year.
He had just entered the Gryffindor common room, thanking the gods to learn he had the afternoon free from any more confusing lessons with may-or-may-not-be dead teachers when he spotted Ron with one arm under Harry’s favourite armchair.
“Need some help?” He asked.
Ron looked up quickly, bumping his head on a side table.
“Bloody hell, Harry you scared me half to death!” Ron cried.
“Sorry,” Harry said sheepishly, heartened by the fact that his best friend at least seemed to be the same as the one he remembered.
“And yes if you must know I’m looking for my charms essay.”
“Under the couch?” Harry asked, confused.
“Don’t ask,” Ron muttered. “Anyway, I’m sure it’s here somewhere,” he said taking a break from his search to face Harry properly.
He took a moment to study Harry, then, before asking the dreaded question.
“What’s going on with you, lately?”
“Hm? Nothing,” Harry shrugged, feigning confusion. If this Ron was anything like his Ron, it would probably be best to come to him when Harry had a few answers of his own first.
Ron didn’t seem convinced.
“I was just going to see Hermione,” Harry said before he could be interrogated further. “I had to ask her something. Homework related, you know.” He cleared his throat. “So, have you seen her?”
That did the trick.
“No,” Ron said quickly, his face suddenly flushed. “And if you find her then you haven’t seen me either, got it?” He punctuated his point with a raised brow and a finger pointed in Harry’s direction.
“Why, what…” Harry started before thinking better of it. “You know what, nevermind. I’ll check the library.”
“Good luck!” Ron called, already back to his search for his essay.