You think you know someone

“No, not Harry! Not my baby. . . have mercy!”

“Step aside, stupid girl!”

“Don’t be a fool, better save your own life and join me . . . or you’ll meet the same end as your parents. . . They died begging me for mercy.”

“LIAR!”

“How touching . . . I always value bravery. . . yes, boy, your parents were brave. . . I killed your father first, and he put up a courageous fight . . . but your mother needn’t have died . . . she was trying to protect you. . . now give me the Stone, unless you want her to have died in vain.”

“You’ll be back with your dear Mudblood mother soon, Harry. . . She bought you twelve years of borrowed time . . . but Lord Voldemort got you in the end, as you knew he must.”

“I'm going to kill you, Harry Potter. I'm going to destroy you. After tonight, no one will ever again question my power. After tonight if they speak of you, they'll only speak of how you begged for death. And how I, being a merciful Lord... obliged.”

“Is this real, sir? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

 Harry had always known that he was not meant to live. Yet in all his life, he never seemed able to just die.

 He could not remember a time in his life that he hadn’t been fighting to live. The dark nights spent nearly starved in the cupboard.  His magic had helped keep him alive without his knowledge, or perhaps it had been his mother’s protection that had kept him alive there. He thought it had been his treacherous luck that wouldn’t let him rest from this cruel world, or maybe, just maybe, he was meant to survive for a purpose.

 Which turned out to be true.

 Harry used think to himself that maybe one day he would find happiness, a place to belong. Maybe someday something would happen, and he’d be able to leave his miserable childhood home. He had found that place in Hogwarts, or so he thought.

 He got entranced by the beauty of magic. How wonderful it felt. How cozy and warm. How much it felt like home.

 But much like his first home, this one hadn’t been kind to him either. Most of his problems occurred in that place, in the Wizarding World where he still had to fight to survive.

 Professor Trelawney wasn’t the only seer with constant predictions of Harry’s looming death. After the Battle of Hogwarts, Harry would encounter people as peculiar as his old Divination professor, and they all had something to say.

 Some called him a walking corpse, some said he was living on burrowed time, and some were simply disgusted by his mere existence. But when it came down to it, they all carried the same message: he was not meant to live.

 It was all but a borrowed time. He was not meant to live for long. Let alone have a semblance of a life well lived. Many have died for him, yes, but he was able to save the rest. He had lived long enough to see people he knew flourish in life after the war, to see his friends start their families and he his own. Him!

 He had it way too good.  

 And he’d always feel guilty about it. Because why had he survived while those who deserved it more hadn’t? His real life didn’t start until after Voldemort’s death. But how many had to die before he could obtain that happiness?

 He’d had it too good, hadn’t he? The Weasleys accepted him into their family. He had an amazing wife and wonderful children. It didn’t hurt that he was great at his job so long as it was more practical than it relied on the tons of paperwork. He had wanted to save lives because that was what he was taught to do in Hogwarts. It was the only thing he was good at. A good father was definitely not on the list.

 He wanted to be the protector people had told him he was since he knew he was a wizard. Why? Was it to prove to them that he was still their savior? Was it to prove that he deserved to live the nice life he’d built for himself? To prove to the seers that he deserved to keep his life so long as he did it for a selfless reason?

 But it wasn’t entirely selfless, was it? He liked being seen as a savior in his children’s eyes. If the public would have them believe that their father was a hero, then they’d learn to rely on him for sanctuary. And Harry would do absolutely anything for them just to never have them grow to be ashamed of him like he was of himself.

 Ginny was always the better parent though. It wasn’t that he was jealous, on the contrary, he was beyond happy to have her as his partner and for his kids to have her as a mother.

Wistfully, he reminisced about how Ginny described their son’s Patrons to look like. She had thought that it had been Harry who had sent it.

 Harry might have been personally affronted by the notion that his own son didn’t want to speak to him. But he supposed that’s fair given that Albus was closer to his mother. He trusted one parent more than the other. Though the stag Patroni proved that Albus still saw Harry as his protector. 

 His heart had warmed with that knowledge and he knew he had to be the one to come for him. So, when Sirius asked him to come along, he jumped at the opportunity and asked James to borrow the cloak. He told his children it would be just like any other auror mission. Life threatening, sure, but he always emerged victorious.

 Ginny was reluctant to let him go. Ron and Hermione, who knew him sometimes better than he knew himself, kept telling him that he needn’t do as Sirius asked. They told him to just grab Albus and return home and forget about defeating another Dark lord.

 But if Harry wouldn’t be the one to do it, who would? Sirius’ godson? And what would happen to him then? He’d survive like Harry did at the expense of people dying for him.

 That Harry was an underaged wizard still. That Harry had a chance of having a fate different from his. Once he knew Albus was safe, he’d make sure to save a version of himself the same life he had to endure.

 His footing felt heavily uncoordinated after having spent a couple of hours in this dimension. Once, Sirius had said something about a vaccine, but Harry had waved him off. He’d make sure his son was well taken care of before tending to himself.

 It had been difficult at first, but he was able to make up for the time lost with his godfather by getting to know this Sirius. He was privileged to have lived long enough to see Sirius in some form again. . . but he was simply burrowing another Harry’s godfather. That Harry needed Sirius more than he did. 

 Guilt was a big factor for him to have. He felt guilty for having survived as long as he had. For not dying when he oughtn't have lived to make it to seventeen to begin with. If only his mum had taken up Voldemort’s offer and saved herself.  And for seeing Remus while Teddy couldn’t.

Teddy, who didn’t know his father nor mother. And here Harry was, privileged as always to see Remus alive one more time when Teddy never had.

 “I’m going to kill you, Harry Potter.” Voldemort said. His red eyes seeing through his disguise. "I'm going to destroy you."

 The words were greeted by his ears the way he and Ginny greeted each other when one returned home. It felt familiar. It felt right. After all, didn’t another Voldemort promise the very same thing?

 “You will die a nobody. And I will have completed my part of the prophecy.” This other Voldemort said. Can’t wait.

 (Perhaps this was the reason Al was dragged to this dimension. Perhaps this was what those seers had been predicting. Perhaps fate willed it to be that his son had to be dragged into this mess, but no matter. He would at least die knowing that Albus had made it home safe and sound, and that a version of himself would be unburdened.)

 Harry had been an inexperienced teenager in all the times he’d come to defy the Dark lord and survived. 

 He grew a lot from that damaged boy. He was a fully trained and capable wizard. He already defeated a Dark lord in seventeen. He could do so again. Only this time, no one else would die but two. 

 The first would be Voldemort, because Harry had promised Sirius to unburden his godson from that task.

 The second would be himself, because if he stayed here any longer, everyone from his world and this one would parish.

 His death was even more required than Voldemort’s to save people by this point.

 They’d both have to go. And in the end, two half-blood orphans who defied death so much would live no longer. He will make sure of it. 

He and Tom were one again.

 But this was no longer a reliving of Voldemort’s past. In this dream, Harry was in his own body rather than Tom’s, though the condition of his mental state felt eerily similar to how it usually played out. It was still Tom who was in charge, and it was still Harry who was just an observant inside of Tom’s head. That was how Harry knew it was another one of those dreams.

 He and Tom felt immediate distress when they detected the absence of the ring on their finger, so naturally, they left the Burrow—(the Burrow?!) to search for it as soon as possible.

 They apparated to the Guant hovel. The sensation was strange; they (Harry!) hadn’t even taken their apparation exam. It was supposed to be this term, but they (Tom!) were natural at it!

 The ring wasn’t there. They had always planned on hiding it there one day. Had their main soul changed the ring’s location?

 They apparated again to the graveyard hosting the tombstone of their filthy muggle father. (Cedric was killed here! HARRY could never forget this place even if he tried to. He had nightmares about this graveyard.)

 The ring wasn’t here either. Not that they really expected it to be. They couldn’t fathom why their main soul would change the ring’s hiding place, let alone where the other location could be. In the end, they were relieved the main soul hadn’t left the ring with the remains of their muggle father. (Tom’s father. Harry supplied in the hopes that he would not lose himself.)

 Harry tried to reassert himself as the only conscious in this tangible form. After all, this was his body, and Tom had no right to claim it as his own!

 Harry wasn’t sure anymore he wanted to search for Voldemort’s most valued possessions. What if Voldemort made do on his promise and start targeting Harry’s friends personally? He had to stop searching for the ring.

 Harry tried steering his own body and make it head back to the Burrow, but the attempt was to no avail. The attempt was as effective as trying to gain control over the memories of Tom Riddle he relived in his sleep. . .

. . .  If he was asleep, all he had to do was wake up, right?

 Harry couldn’t wake up.

 This was no longer a dream but a living nightmare.