Disclaimer: Jo Rowlings
owns everybody you know. And the people you don’t.
I don’t intend to lay claim to anybody and even though I know
her characters are copyrighted, I couldn’t resist.
Dedications: To Sakura, who mentions me in her Blog
and tells me to stop lurking. ^.^
I hope you like it.
Dream a Little Dream
of Me
When Harry Potter dreamed about his parents it was
always one of two dreams; it was either the nightmare filled with
green-light and screaming, which was not really a nightmare at all,
or it was the pleasant, sweet dream in which he was simply a boy who
lived and not The Boy Who Lived with all its stupid, capitalized concepts.
The dreams were vivid and detailed, sounds, scents, touches,
were experienced as though they were reality. Harry
only knew they were dreams because life with the Dursleys
was simply too awful to be anything but reality.
The dreams rarely varied from their format and so
when Harry rolled over and woke to sounds of frying bacon and singing
and opened his eyes on a large, airy room stuffed with wizard toys,
he knew immediately which dream it was, even before his mother’s voice
carried though his door. “Harry,” she was humming along
to whichever tune it was that his father was singing. “Come
on, Harry-love.” Harry heard her knuckles rap quietly
before his door cracked open. “I know for a fact,”
his mother’s voice sparkled with laughter, “that you didn’t even touch
your trunk last night. So up you get; after breakfast
and the Quidditch match you can unpack
your things, write to Ron and Hermione, badger your father to get
tickets to the Puddlemere game next week,
dump all your mending on me, and tell us all about your fourth year
at school and the Tournament. You played Quidditch against
the boy who won, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, Mum,” Harry laughed. He laughed
because it was a dream and in this dream his Mum and his Dad had defeated
Voldemort without anybody getting killed and that meant that Cedric
Diggory was still alive and the only Hogwarts Champion who’d competed
for, and won, the Triwizard Tournament.
“I beat him, too; despite all that rain. Remember?
Hermione had to Charm my glasses.” Because there
had never been Dementors anywhere near Hogwarts and he hadn’t fallen.
“What’s for breakfast?” he asked curiously as he scrambled out of
bed.
“Whatever your father doesn’t burn,” his mother said
semi-seriously. She raised one eyebrow and tutted
as she surveyed him. “You’re growing like a little
weed, aren’t you? Your pajamas are far too short.” Harry
watched her shake her head, red hair swinging and catching the light.
She was very pretty, his mum. “I can remember
when you were big enough for me to cradle in one arm,” she reached
out to ruffle his hair and Harry knew that, as a boy of nearly fifteen,
he should dodge away, but he didn’t; he savored the small, familiar
touch. “And now look at you! You’re going
to be taller than Sirius, I’d wager. You’ve already
topped Peter, that’s for certain.” She ruffled his hair one more time
before moving to open his curtains.
Peter, in this dream world, had never been anything
but a loyal, wonderful friend to his parents. He was,
in dream-life, a treasured uncle and so Harry yawned and asked, “Is
Uncle Peter going to be coming to the Quidditch match with Dad and
Uncle Sirius and me today?”
Lily Potter, glowing in the sunlight, snorted.
“Try and keep him away. Your Uncle Remus is
going to be here for the day, he’s a bit worn out by last night’s
full moon, so try to keep the excited shrieking over the top-box seats
to a minimum.”
“Yeah!” Harry thrust one fist into
the air and shouted quietly. There was little better
than a day out with his father and his uncles; the only thing better
was being at the Quidditch World Cup with his uncles, his parents
and his friends.
“Shh,” his mother chuckled. “I’m going
to stop your father from scorching everything, you get yourself washed
and dressed and come eat.” She left his room, pulling
his door shut behind her. Harry didn’t move for a moment
and true to form his mother cracked his door open and poked her head
back in, “You’ll wash your hands and face, young man. I’d
tell you to brush your hair, but I don’t know if it’d help,” she winked
and left again, leaving Harry laughing in her wake and picking up
his brush.
He was quick to brush his hair and teeth and he was
careful to wash behind his ears as well. His mother
would check as he walked past her to open the window for the owl-mail
and if it was still wet she’d drop a kiss onto his hair and sigh and
tell him he was such a good boy.
“What a good boy,” she sighed moments later, nuzzling
his hair before kissing it and releasing him to go to the window.
Harry grinned as, at the stove, his father heaved
a sigh. “Lily, after seventeen years of marriage and
nearly fifteen years of parenthood,” James Potter turned and pointed
the bacon fork at his wife, “it behooves me to tell you that
you, my dear, are such a Mum.”
Lily grabbed the fork with an easy movement and a
knowing smile. “James, darling, it pains me to say it,
but you are truly terrible with puns,” she laughed and began putting
the bacon on a plate. “Behooves you.
Honestly. Make tea, Cervus elaphus.”
“Oooo,” Harry smiled as his father nudged him and
sent a mock-wondering gaze at his mother. “Latin, Lily…and
in front of Harry!” Harry rolled his eyes even though
he was beaming. “And I am not so! That
was rather a good one, I’ll have you know,” his father nudged him
again, brown eyes crinkled at the corners from his smile and framed
by crows feet from too much, never really enough, laughing.
“Tell her, Harry!”
“Mum,” Harry sighed dutifully, heart too light for
his tone, “Dad was brilliantly clever.” He reached into
the enchanted icebox for the milk just as Remus Lupin,
still older-looking than his years but nowhere near as haggard as
when Harry had really met him, stumbled into the kitchen.
Remus, Uncle Remus, yawned and scratched at his hair.
“I don’t know why I thought I’d get any rest if I stayed over,”
he yawned again, scratched harder and dislodged a twig, which he blinked
at and Banished into the trashcan. “You’re louder than
Sirius as Padfoot.” He laughed
suddenly even though he slumped tiredly into a chair at the table.
“You might be louder than Sirius as Sirius.”
“I hardly said a word,” Harry protested, taking the
tea cup his father handed him to his uncle. “Blame Mum
and Dad, they’re flirting again.”
James laughed and brought the bacon to the table.
“Complain about it, Harry, and you’ll never get another little
brother or sister. And you know how much you wanted
the first three. Speaking of,” he muttered, “I’d better
look in on them again...they sleep like Lily.”
Setting the teapot down in front of Remus, Lily smiled.
“They truly do. I woke them before I came into
your room, Harry.” She handed him a glass for his milk
and patted his shoulder. “Thank goodness you came first,”
she sighed happily. “You were such a good baby.
If Sean had been first he would have been an only child.”
“Ha,” Remus pointed at Harry. “Your
mother complained about all of you, I’ll have you know. You’d
think she’d never done without sleep before you came along.”
Harry nodded gleefully, glad to join in the affectionate
teasing, “She’s terrible. She fell asleep during the
Third Task, right in the stands, and Dad had to take the Portkey
back home with her because she wouldn’t wake up!” Harry
beamed and ducked as his mother swatted at him. “Dad
had to carry Jessica and Mum.”
“Ah, the things I missed patrolling the maze!” Remus
sighed in contentment and sat back with a smile. As
the only Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor that Hogwarts had
employed in the last ten years, Remus had been working at the Tournament
instead of sitting in the stands with the students and fans. “Who
carried Ann and Sean then?”
“Ron’s dad carried Annie,” Harry grinned again as
his brother dropped into the chair next to him and laid his dark head
on the table. “I was awake. Mostly.”
“That’s because it was boring,” Ann tumbled into
the kitchen with a brilliant grin and dropped herself into Remus’s
lap. “We couldn’t see anything in that
stupid maze. Are you going to stay and play with us
today, Uncle Remus?” The sweet smile turned suddenly
into a much put out pout. “Daddy is taking just
Harry out today.”
Harry stuck out his tongue at his youngest sister.
“That’s because I just came back from Hogwarts
where I am the only Potter.” He was the only
Potter at Hogwarts, but not the only Potter left in the world.
He had three siblings with black hair and green eyes; people
often said that Harry’s family looked like pictures of each other
with slightly different noses and lips.
Remus laughed. “You won’t be the only
Potter there for long. Sean’s letter should be showing
up in just a few weeks and then you’ll have a Potter a year until
you leave school.” He tweaked Ann’s nose and set her
on the chair next to him. “Besides, Harry has to deal
with Professor Snape.” He
winked and Harry winked back because life was never perfect and Snape
still really, really disliked him even though he wasn’t famous.
“And,” Remus continued as Harry’s mother and father
came to sit at the table with his other sister in tow, “I give out
detentions with Mr. Filch even if you are my godchildren.”
“That, Moony, is because you’re cruel.” Sirius’s
voice boomed down the hallway from the front door. Sirius
Black came into the kitchen looking almost exactly as he had in Harry’s
photo album; it now sat, filled with pictures, on a shelf in the family
room and the wedding picture with Sirius and his parents laughing
and waving was in a big frame over the fireplace. “I’d
expect nothing less,” Sirius continued, stealing a piece of toast
from Harry’s plate, “from a man who lets his friend go through the
brambles first. You wouldn’t believe what I had to
pull out of my hair this morning,” he shook his head for emphasis.
“Next time you or Prongs are going to go in first, do you hear
me?”
“Or I could,” Peter Pettigrew, with all five fingers
on both hands, leaned against the door jamb and grinned.
Jessica giggled and stood up to hug her own godfather.
“Uncle Peter, don’t be silly! You’re too little
when you’re Wormtail! Uncle
Sirius would get all caught up anyway!” How long ago
had they registered as Animagi?
Harry couldn’t recall since it had happened before his birth
along with the ending of the stupid Werewolf Labor Laws.
Peter leaned down to ‘whisper’ confidentially in
her ear, just loud enough for all of them to hear him, “I know that,
but your Uncle Sirius doesn’t think in straight lines, you see, and
he’d probably miss that little detail completely.” He
winked as the table burst out laughing.
Sirius cuffed him gently on the head. “Thanks
a lot, you big oaf! See if I fix you up with
the stunning young lady in the MLEs after
that; you can go out and find your own dates.” But he
was laughing and so was everybody else. Harry smiled
and began to eat faster; they had a Quidditch match to get to today,
the last one with just him and his father and his uncles. Next
year they would bring Sean along and the year after that they’d bring
Jessica and the next year they’d…
“Slow down, Harry,” his father chided him as he shoveled
cereal and bacon into his mouth. “They’re early,” Harry
watched his father trade a secretive glance with his friends.
“We’re not leaving until after the mail arrives.”
As though Summoned, possibly by Harry’s own excitement,
three owls swooped in through the open window; one was bearing the
Daily Prophet, one was a regular Post Owl and one… “That’s Pig!” Harry
exclaimed with a wide smile. The Weasleys
had bought Pig for Ron with the last of their Galleon Draw money when
Scabbers had died late in their third year.
“That’s Pig,” Harry said as he untied the letter from the tiny
owl, “but this is Hermione’s handwriting.”
His parents and uncles traded knowing looks.
“Oh?” His father said innocently. “So Ron finally
got his courage up, eh? Hermione’s married him and
they’re living happily together in some rented cottage?”
“Not likely,” Harry laughed. “Something tells me
that he and Hermione are going to be faffing
around with that for a long time yet.” He hummed
slightly to himself as he unrolled the paper, “They probably wrote
it together at Kings Cross before Hermione’s parents showed up.
You know we like to…” he trailed off as he saw the words on
the parchment.
Hurry up, Harry, or we’ll miss the match!
And it’s bloody cold out here
on your front steps. Tell Sirius he owes us Cannon’s
hats for waiting! Really,
Ron. Come out,
Harry! We’re ready to go! ~Love from, Hermione.
He knows it us, Hermione.
Right, Harry?
“Ron! Hermione!”
Harry raced away from the table to fling open the door.
His two best friends stood together on the walk and wearing
big grins.
Hermione waved to him. “Ready
to leave? Or shall we come inside for a bit?”
“It’s the Cannons,” Ron protested with a laugh.
“We should be there by now!”
James Potter came up beside Harry and smiled.
“I thought, since this is the last year with ‘just us’ that
you might want Ron and Hermione to come along and make it special.”
Harry knew that he should stand and smile until his
head fell off, but it was a dream and so he threw his arms around
his father and buried his face in his father’s shirt for an instant,
smelling tea and breakfast and his father. “Ta, Dad.
That’s really great.” He drew back with a grin
that matched his father’s exactly. “Can we go now?”
“That’s what I like to hear from my godson!” Sirius
slapped him on the back before he and Peter went out to join Ron and
Hermione, both of them disappeared into the slowly growing field of
gold light that had swallowed up his friends.
“Did you invite Ginny along?” Harry
turned as his mother came out of the kitchen, backlit by the same
glow.
Harry took a step to his mother and felt her fingers
shift through his hair. He closed his eyes to block
out the light and asked, “Why do you always ask if Dad’s invited Ginny
Weasley?”
“No reason, no reason at all,” his mother was laughing,
her voice sly and not shy about being so. The glow infused
his eyelids.
Distantly, far down the lane, he could hear a pounding
noise start up. “Don’t ask, Harry,” Harry heard his
father laugh. “Not unless you want to be here all day.”
“Mum? Why do you always…” he didn’t
get to finish the question before Aunt Petunia’s pounding woke him.
He never did.
