The Dream Trilogy Book One: To Dwell On Dreams (A Harry Potter FanFiction)

Chapter Thirty Seven

Chapter Thirty Seven

"Harry?" 

He swam through the darkness, searching for something to grip onto as consciousness came crawling back to him. Was he dead? He hoped not, he didn't feel very dead, but then having never died before how could he really be sure? 

"Harry?" came the voice again, a man's voice, one Harry thought he recognised. "Harry old chap, come on, wake up." 

He tried to open his eyes, a handsome but worried face greeting him as the man in the tailcoat peered down at him. "Wha-?" 

"You're nearly there," said the man encouragingly. "If you just wake up, just hang in a little longer." 

Harry blinked and the man was gone, so he let his eyes close once more. A different voice called his name though, this one belonging to a girl. "H-harry?" The voice was shaking, desperate. He reached for it. Slowly, very slowly, the feeling came back into his limbs, the pain of his broken arm, the cold of the stone floor on his skin. His head was killing him, and he could feel warm blood oozing down his face, pooling in his ear.  

"Harry!" Something punched into his arm, causing him to jerk in on himself, firing shockwaves of pain through the break in his other arm. He grunted and prised his stinging eyes open. 

Sarah was sitting, still bound, trembling and trying not to cry. She gasped back a dry sob as Harry blinked and attempted to sit. "I thought you were dead!" she shrieked accusingly, rubbing her cheeks with the back of one of her trembling hands. She was ashen white, with purple-black smudges blotted under her eyes and on her jaw where she'd been struck.  

"Where is he," mumbled Harry, dry tongue catching against his teeth. Sarah stopped sniffing and became very still.  

"I don't know," she whispered, curling her limbs into her chest. "There was that spell, all the green light, you passed out, and he...he just..." She steadied herself with a deep breath. "I think he vanished." Harry's hand flew to his head, it came away sticky with blood. "You've got a cut," Sarah said numbly, as if confirming something very trivial. "It's like a zig zag." 

"Like a lightning bolt?" asked Harry in disbelief. She nodded, and his vision swam so vigorously he had to throw his bloody hand to the floor to steady himself. "I've done it again," he whispered in disbelief. He stared out through the gently falling dust at the rubble, looking for proof, but there was nothing to be seen which gave him all the proof he needed. 

But how? His mother had thrown herself in front of his cot, refusing to save herself, dying rather than give up her son. That was what saved him before, all those years ago. But then he thought of how he had grabbed Quirrell's face to protect the Philosopher's Stone, and how he'd had exactly the same effect on Voldemort just moments ago. 

This may not have been his body, but somehow Lily Potter's sacrifice was still with him. 

And had now saved two Potter children. 

He could see Sarah staring at him as he spotted Wormtail lying on the floor, eyes closed, bleeding from several superficial wounds. He'd been knocked unconscious too it seemed, but the wooden snakes were still keeping him prisoner. 

"Done what?" asked Sarah, pulling at her binds. Harry looked about for his wand from where he'd dropped it, but it was nowhere in sight. He tried one-handedly to undo her ropes but they weren't budging. 

"I think he's dead," said Harry, concentrating on the twine and not the pain in his arm. "You-Know-Who, he's gone." 

"But," said Sarah, going slack as she stared at her brother, apparently completely forgetting about the rope that held her. "He can't be."