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

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Harry did his best, detailing all the differences from his memories and what seemed to have happened in the place he was now. Hermione listened intently, asking numerous questions, never needing to be told anything twice.

"But how can it be happening?" he asked her, his voice feeling slightly hoarse having talked so much. "Am I dreaming?"

"Well," Hermione said, ponderously. "I would be inclined to say you're not dreaming, as I know I'm real. I can assure you I have a lifetime of memories, you didn't make me up." Harry frowned at considered that. "Of course," she continued, catching onto his wave of thought before he'd even been able to organise it properly himself. "You don't know that, do you? I'm just telling you that - but, look around. You think what you're seeing is real in a dream until you wake up, but have you ever thought you're dreaming when you're awake? Does this look real to you?"

Harry gazed around Hermione's bedroom, and oddly felt even more dejected. "No, this looks real," he agreed. "But what other option does that leave? Time travel?"

"Why would you jump to that conclusion?" she asked, bewildered, then Harry explained about their exploits with the Time-Turner in their third year.

"Maybe someone went back and changed something, before I was born or something, so now reality is different?" He'd already tried to convince himself that couldn't have been the case, but he voiced it out loud anyway, if only to be rebuffed.

Hermione sat in quiet contemplation for a minute. "But you didn't have the hourglass did you?"

Harry rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe someone else did?" But she was already shaking her head.

"You said that everything that happened when you - we - went back in time had already happened. Like you actually being the one to make the deer appear with that expecto patronum thingy." Harry nodded. "Then that would suggest you wouldn't notice the difference if someone had changed time - do you get me?"

Harry frowned. "You mean, for me, it would be like that was the way it'd had always been?" That's exactly what he'd told himself.

"Yes," she said enthusiastically. "You wouldn't have woken up and realised anything was amiss. I'm not entirely ruling it out - there may be other ways to go back and change time that would leave you out of the...um...rewrite. But from what you've explained that doesn't seem to be what happened." She let out a little laugh. "Gosh, this is crazy, I can't believe we're talking about this."

That made sense to Harry, but it was still another dead end. "Okay, well I'm out of ideas," he sighed and lent back on her bed post. She chewed her lip and stared off into the middle distance.

"You've woken up," she muttered. "You're still 'you' but your body's changed and so has the history around you." Harry watched her, the cogs almost visibly turning in her head. She looked sheepishly up at him. "I read something once..and I've seen it in TV shows...but you might think I've lost my mind."

Harry blinked. "I've just told you you're a witch. Try me."

"Well," she said, smiling a little. "Okay. So, um, it's a bit sciencey, but I'll try and keep it simple." Harry nodded so she went on. "There are things call dimensions, it's like the way we organise how we understand reality. The first dimension is like when you see a square drawn on paper. Then the second dimension would be the same square drawn as a cube - or more obviously when you have a photograph - it's flat but what it represents is the third dimension." Harry decided now would not be the time to mention magical moving photographs and just nodded to show he was keeping up. "So, the third dimension is physical." She patted the bed and illustrated her room with her hand. "Everything you can touch, everything that has physical form is three dimensional."