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

Chapter Twenty Nine

Chapter Twenty Nine

They walked along in silence for some time. Since their encounter with the feral Ungezähmts they hadn't run into anything more unpleasant than a brood of nifflers, who had been more interested in Hermione's shoe buckles than anything else. She had wanted to stroke the badger-like creatures as they'd sniffed her feet, but Harry had urged against it, just in case. 

Malfoy remained stubbornly in front of them, far enough away to be separate, but just close enough that they were still in the light. Harry's eyes were fixed to the back of his head, mulling over what he'd told them about his mum. No one was denying that he'd been the one to let the Death Eaters inside the school, though so far no one had explained how he'd managed it which Harry found unnerving. But if they'd blackmailed him by threatening his mum...Harry couldn't say he entirely blamed him if that was the case. 

He'd known his sister less than six hours, and yet here he was, in another country, risking his life and the lives of his friends to get her back. Some might call that selfish and irresponsible, but to him there was no choice. That's what Malfoy had said to him by the river, that he'd had no choice but to do what he did.  

Seamus and Parvati were walking a little behind Harry and Hermione, and Harry was getting the impression they were talking about him. He couldn't say he blamed them; their Harry would have had the right memories, would have been just as angry no doubt about what had happened at the school in their second year. But Harry didn't carry that baggage with him, and because of it he could sense a gulf growing between him and the other two students. It must be confusing for them, not understanding that he was, in fact, a completely different person. 

Once again, he felt guilty about the situation he'd put them all in, and wondered what had happened to that other Harry. Was he somewhere else, was he nowhere at all? A new thought occurred to him, one that he and Hermione had not discussed in their alternate reality chat, and now he worried that maybe that he and the other Harry had swapped bodies, that the other Harry was in his world, in his body with the lightning bolt scar. It was that thought that made him begin to appreciate the true extent of what he had done, thinking about how he would feel if the other Harry was pretending to be him. Maybe he was helping Sirius? Had Ron and Hermione realised? 

He shook the thought away. There was no way to know if that was what had happened, and in any case, it would be a while before they could spend any time looking into reversing the situation. He just needed to focus on the here and now before he could put his mind back to his original predicament.  

He was still struggling as to whether he could really trust Malfoy. Their history was of years of animosity and outright aggression. But that was in Harry's own reality. Their history in this world was only a few hours long and in that time Malfoy had certainly been sullen and rude as always, but he'd spent almost every word professing his good intention, and Harry couldn't totally ignore that. 

But Seamus and Parvati's intense hatred was also hard to ignore. Harry tried to imagine it, Hogwarts under attack. He'd faced the Basilisk in his own second year, fought it down in the Chamber with the ghost of Tom Riddle watching on, laughing. But Fawkes had come to his rescue, he'd had the sword of Gryffindor to protect himself.  

But these students would have been going about a normal day, only to find themselves faced with a giant snake with a deadly stare. How many had died? Harry wanted to ask. Who? Neville, he knew, and that was enough to make him feel sick to his stomach.  

"How much further?" Seamus called out from behind to Malfoy, but the other boy didn't look round. 

"Shh," he hissed. "Not that far," and carried on walking, hands wrapped around his satchel strap and head turned to look up towards the tree tops. The canopy was still doing a good job of catching the falling snow, but they were far enough up the mountain side that the air was thinning and the temperature was steadily dropping.