Take My Hand

by Big D

Disclaimer: Not Mine. No Profit. No Shit.

AN: As usual when dealing with this version of Harry, I had to go to a pretty dark place to get this done. I think it will be a while before I know whether I got it right or not. After I wrote “Exit Light, Enter Night,” I refused to go back and read it for months, convinced that I had completely butchered the idea of an utterly broken Harry who has snapped and lost all sense of right and wrong. When I finally did sit down and look at it again, it was with the intention of correcting the vast and numerous mistakes that I was certain that I had made while writing it.

Much to my own surprise, I ended up not changing a word. It might not have been perfect, but it got the message across, and that’s all anyone can ever hope for. With any luck, I’ll be able to look back on this installment with the same kind of appreciation. I have vague plans of making this the second part of a trilogy of very dark one-shots, but we’ll see how it works out. For now, I’m just glad to have finally finished it three years later.

(Immediately after the end of “Exit Light, Enter Night.”)

When awareness returns, the first thing I notice is that I’m still on the floor. The floor of the master bedroom at number four is covered with soft carpeting, but this one is bare wood, oak by the smell of it. I open my eyes and find myself in the sitting room of a small, well-appointed cottage that I don’t think I’ve ever been in before. The tee-shirt and shorts that I’d been wearing before are gone, replaced by soft black slacks and a blue button-down shirt over black leather shoes. The cuffs on the long sleeves are undone and rolled up to my elbows.

I stand and take in my surroundings. Most of the furniture is finely carved wood, giving off an impression of age and expert craftsmanship, but that’s not what jumps out at me. Instead it’s something I don’t see... a telly. Almost every sitting room in the UK has a telly, so the lack of one tells me that this is either a magical home or one so far out in the country that the BBC signal doesn’t reach well.

“Or maybe they just have taste,” I mutter.

I explore the rest of the house, and quickly find myself in a room that answers the question.

The nursery is off to the side of the kitchen, and looks to be a recent addition. It’s rather unremarkable, filled with all the things you would expect to find in a small child’s room. What catches my eye are the wall-hangings: a sky-blue background across which little golden snitches flit erratically. I think that the magical effect is meant to entertain the child, but all it’s doing is making me seasick. I walk over to the crib and pull out the stuffed lion laying inside. I pull the tail and it lets out a very realistic roar along with an animated gnashing of teeth.

“Trying to give the little brat nightmares.” I grunt, and toss it aside.

There’s flicker of movement off to my right and I move over to investigate. On a shelf behind the folding pram is a picture. Like all magical photos, it has captured the moment rather than the image. The moment it shows is of four young men standing around a short young woman with red hair and green eyes, holding a bundle in her arms. The dark-haired man on her left drapes an arm around the girl possessively, which earns him a hard smack on the back of the head from the dark-haired man on her right, who’s her real husband and the father of the child she’s holding. Sirius raises his hands and begs off from James’ pseudo-wrath, before whispering something into Lupin’s ear that causes him to spit out some of whatever he’s just taken a drink of, and look at the dog animagus as if he had gone mad.

I can feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up as I realize what I’m looking at, and suddenly those bright blue walls feel like they’re closing in on me. I drop the picture and quickly leave the room, heading for the front door as I remind myself that this has to be a dream.

The doorknob in my hand feels terribly real though.

Bright sunshine and the smell of freshly clipped lawns greet me as I leave my parent’s home, but as my foot crosses the threshold, the universe seems to do a one-hundred-and-eighty degree turn and I find myself back inside of the cottage.

“Son of a bitch,” I growl disgustedly, and glare at the walls. “It’s gonna be like that, is it?” Moving back into the sitting room, I can feel a presence watching me. This is starting to piss me off.

“You think that was cute, don’t you?” I snap at the walls. For some reason, they don’t respond. But someone else does.

“Harry.” comes the whisper behind me. I round on the voice, opening my mouth to rip the speaker a new proverbial asshole. The words die in my throat as I see who it is.

She’s sitting on the sofa with her legs pulled up under her, wearing a simple white skirt and a loose, long-sleeved pink blouse. Her feet are bare, the toes unpainted, and her wavy red hair is cut to her shoulders, framing a flawless, elfin face with vivid green eyes. Even from here I catch a whiff of wildflowers and stones warmed by bright sunshine.

She’s smaller than I thought she would be, but still heartbreakingly beautiful. The rational part of my mind, as much of it as I still retain, tells me that this cannot possibly be Lily Evans Potter; that it must be some sort of trick concocted by Voldemort to fuck with my head. But the irrational part of me, the one that, paradoxically, I’ve come to trust the most, is certain that I’m looking at my mother for the first time in my living memory.

“You could’ve at least dressed up a little.” I say in a flat tone.

She blinks, surprised that I would start our first conversation by critiquing her attire, but recovers quickly. “I was getting ready to leave and all my billowy white robes were at the cleaners.” she replies with a smile, before giving a fake sigh. “And don’t even get me started about the forms you have to fill out to get one of those halos.” Her face turns more serious. “Oh, I’ve missed you so much, Harry.” she says.

Up to this point, I’d been floating in a haze, unable to truly process what I was seeing or determine if it was real or not. Now, my mind snapped into focus. Lily opens her mouth to continue, but I cut her off.

“Why are you here?” I demand. “Why now?”

My mother’s answer is slow, like she’s explaining something that’s perfectly obvious. “I’m here because I love you, Harry,” she says. The rest of her reply is cut off by my snorted laugh. “I do love you!” she repeats hotly.

Darkly amused smirk still in place, I reassure her. “I know you love me, mum.” The last word tastes funny in my mouth... unnatural. “But that’s not the reason you’re here. You’ve loved me for a long time, but you’ve never popped by for a chat until just now.” I move over and sit on the coffee table in front of her. “So I’ll ask again... why?”

“Does it matter why?” she asks softly. “The important thing is that I’m here now.”

I don’t reply. Instead, I reach out and take one of her hands, pulling it towards me and gently inspecting it. It’s tiny and warm, with strong, slender fingers that look as if they would be at home with a paintbrush cradled in them. Or a wand, for that matter. It feels more real than anything I’ve ever touched, and I wonder again how much of this is actually a dream. Lily is content to allow me this quiet moment, and startles a little when I break it.

“It does matter.” I whisper. “It matters because you didn’t come here just to see me. You’re here to give me the ol’ pep talk, so I can go out and be a good little sacrificial lamb against Voldemort.” I look up at her. “That’s what you really want, isn’t it? That’s what everyone wants from me. For me to be the hero. But I’m not a hero... I never was.” I lean closer. “And frankly, I don’t want to be one.”

I can see the heartache in her eyes as she reaches out and brushes her hand across my face. My eyes close, and I lean into the caress. It’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever felt. I feel her hands on either side of my face and she pulls me forward so I’m kneeling before her with my head resting in her lap. She leans over and embraces me. “My poor, sweet, confused boy.” she murmurs, rubbing my back. “Dear god, what have they done to you?”

Her hands are like a soothing balm, rubbing away the creeping madness that’s been stalking me for who knows how long. Her warm breath tickles the back of my neck, and in that moment, I can feel her boundless love for me. The same love that caused her to freely give up her life for mine, the same love that has guided her back to me, so many years later.

“It’s not about being a hero, Harry.” she says, “It’s about doing the right thing, no matter what people think.”

A flash of rage runs through me at those overly-sappy words. I pull away from her. “You don’t understand. I don’t care what people think.” I look into her eyes, and try to make her realize what I’m saying. “I don’t want to fight him anymore. I don’t want the responsibility. I don’t want the pain. I don’t want any of it.”

Pushing her hands away, I rise and walk to the other side of the room. On one of the many shelves there’s another picture of my mother standing with a group, only this time she’s much younger and the photo is completely still. It shows the entire Evans family standing in front of a large, ornate building, on holiday perhaps. My grandfather, a slender, fit-looking man of slightly above average height, has Lily up on one shoulder and is waving at the camera with his free hand. Petunia, a little too old and tall to sit on her dad’s shoulder, is standing in front of my grandmother. Even in the slightly grainy picture I can see the look of unabashed joy on her face. My grandmother has her arms wrapped around her oldest daughter and her chin rests on the girl’s head. She’s a lovely, young-seeming woman, who’s long, light brown hair whips to the side in a strong breeze. I pick up the photo and take a closer look.

A moment later, I hear Lily stand up behind me. She comes a few steps closer and stops. “Harry...” she says softly, “If you don’t do anything to stop Voldemort, then everyone you care about will die.”

My hand tightens on the frame, and a long crack splits the glass holding the picture down.

“Then they’ll just have to die, won’t they?” I say in an equally soft voice.

She gasps. “You don’t mean that.”

I turn my head back just enough to see her in edge of my vision.

“I’ve never meant anything more in my life.”

She reaches out to grasp my arm, and when her hand touches me I feel a stirring behind my eyes. Suddenly, I’m overwhelmed by a vision of what I’d just done to Petunia. The whole thing plays out again before me, as crisp and real as when it first happened. More so, because I’m not as distracted by my anger. I’m not alone though. I can feel my mother’s presence alongside mine, moving through the memory with me. By the time the shared vision reaches the point when I’m throttling her sister, I can feel her desperately trying to pull away, to break contact with my mind. But we’re locked together, and neither of us can escape.

It’s only after we relive the cops breaking in and tearing me off of Petunia’s corpse that the vision breaks. I lean against the shelves, my head spinning from the rush of sensation. I hear Lily fall to the floor behind me, and the sound of uncontrollable retching follows.

As I stare down at her, I ask myself again just how real this dream is. More importantly, what the hell just happened? Had she caused it, or had I? It must have been me, I reason. It was my memory, after all, and I had clearly felt her desire to withdraw from it, and her inability to do so.

Why couldn’t she get away? She has power here, that much was obvious from the way she had constructed this vision of our former home and how she stopped me from leaving. So why? An altogether cold and intelligent part of my mind answers: Because you didn’t want her to get away.

This may have been a magical dream, but it was still a dream. And in a dream, it’s the dreamer who makes the rules, always, even when they don’t realize it themselves. She had been able to usurp my power over the dream because, in my confusion, I had allowed her to. I had believed that someone else was controlling everything around me, and so someone else was able to. More of that tricky Legilimency shit, no doubt.

But not anymore.

With that realization, the walls of Godric’s Hollow begin to shift and warp in unnatural ways, like a funhouse from hell, the colors subtly shifting into darker, more ominous hues. The dream becomes open to me, every detail of it lashed to my will and awareness. I can feel the flow of the pseudo-matter all around me, hear the sounds of imaginary children playing outside, feel the thudding beat of my mother’s heart as she gasps for breath at my feet.

When she finally turns to face me, it is with a face full of fear and revulsion. The fear grows even greater as she realizes that I’ve taken control of the dream from her, and in a panic she tries to withdraw, to flee back into whatever beyond place she had come from. She begins to shimmer, to fade away.

I feel my teeth bare.

My fist clenches before me, like I’m grabbing someone by the throat and choking them. She lurches back into corporeality with a painful gasp, looking up at me, terror etching every line of her face.

“We’re not done yet,” I hiss.

With a quirk of will, she’s jerked into the air by her neck. Clutching at invisible bonds and kicking her feet uselessly, she struggles as I levitate her into my once-upon-a-time nursery, then fling her against the far wall, not hard enough to do damage, just enough to get her attention, and to let her know who’s running the show now.

She leans against the wall and pants wildly, looking at me with eyes that belong more on a cornered fawn than an adoring mother. I flick my wrist and will a simple wooden chair into existence, then turn it around, sitting down backwards and watch her for a moment.

“Harry...” she whispers, trying to reason with me.

“Sssshhh,” I say softly, touching a finger to my lips. “It’s not time for begging yet. That will come soon, so just be patient.” My awareness of the dream allows me to taste her fear, and I bask in it for a moment before continuing. “You never really answered my question.” She says nothing and my eyes narrow. “Don’t make me ask it again. You know what I’m talking about.”

She swallows and glances around the room, but knows she has nowhere to run. “They didn’t tell me what happened,” she says quietly. “What you did. It doesn’t work like that.” Anger touches the edges of her eyes. “They won’t even let me watch over you, to see what you’re doing. It’s not like in the stories, Harry. I haven’t even seen James since...” she trails off and her eyes close mournfully. “There’s no pain or death there, but there’s no love either. It’s like with the dream. You can have anything you want, but it’s still just you. All alone. We’re all supposed to be waiting for something, but they won’t tell us what it is. I don’t think even they know.”

She lets out a soft sob. “They came to me and said that you needed me. They told me to go to you, to remind you of your destiny. They made the Prophecy, Harry. They speak through Seers, bending fate to their plan.” Her eyes bore into mine, and I see nothing but the naked truth there. “They sent me because they want you to kill Voldemort, but that’s not why I came. I don’t give a damn about fate. I care about you. Just you.”

I feel my anger towards her ebb slightly. Standing, I allow the chair to vanish before approaching her. Her fear has given way to cautious acceptance, and perhaps even a little trust. She has seen what I’ve become and is repulsed by it, but her nature will not allow her to love me any less.

I hold out a hand. “Let me show you what they wouldn’t let you see.”

Eyes wide, she reaches a trembling hand towards mine. When our fingers touch, we’re swallowed by memories of venomous, hateful words that sting so badly that whips and broken glass would have been kinder. Words that open cuts which never show and never heal, only rot and fester on the inside. Memories of long, empty days and nights spent huddled in the dark, weeping until I ran out of tears, blaming myself because I was too young to understand concepts like bigotry and irrational jealousy.

I see myself learning to hide that pain at the same time as I learned the alphabet, to bury it deep inside of me and show the world what I thought it wanted to see. I see myself running from foes that I should have stood and fought against. See myself trying to prove that the Dursley’s were wrong when what I should have been doing was proving them right.

I see my life get turned upside down and inside out. See myself confronted by the impossible and respond to it by trying to be normal. Of all my mistakes, this is the one I regret the most. I’ve never been normal, and pretending to be was only an insult to myself. Not to mention a colossal waste of time and effort.

I see darkness rise up and reach out for me, while I pretend that Quidditch and my Astronomy homework were somehow important. I see a second chance at a family held out before me, only to be cruelly snatched away, and then later destroyed.

Through it all, I feel my mother at my side. Her fear of me slowly gives way to sadness and then bitter anger as we walk the path of my life. When the vision finally brakes, I’m surprised to find myself on the floor with her, my arms wrapped around her as she weeps. She clutches at me like I’m her only shelter from a terrible storm and bawls into my chest.

I feel a surprising amount of warmth and protectiveness at the gesture. My hand moves of its own accord, smoothing down Lily’s hair and tucking her forehead under my chin. The scent of her washes over me and I turn my head, pressing my cheek into the deep scarlet strands and inhaling deeply, luxuriating in her presence. Her sobs and quiet whimpers raise gooseflesh along my arms, and I can’t decide if it’s because I want to tear apart whatever it is that’s hurting her, or if I just like listening to her cry.

“I never knew,” she mumbles between soft gasps for air. “I never imagined.” She shudders and I hold her tighter. “I can’t stay there anymore,” she whispers. “I can’t go back.”

I ease back and cup her face in my hands, tilting her head up to look at me. “Then you won’t,” I say quietly.

Emerald eyes rimmed in red stare back at me with a nearly broken expression, and I brush a thumb across one damp, lightly-tanned cheek, tracing a line down to the corner of her mouth. She turns her head away, her face going scarlet, but I grasp her chin and make her look at me. This time she doesn’t resist as I run the pad of my thumb across her bottom lip, holding it between my thumb and forefinger in a decidedly intimate gesture, and after a moment, she closes her eyes and leans deeper into my touch.

Lily whines softly into my mouth as I lean down to press my lips against hers. I can sense her hesitation, the inner struggle between her sense of decency and her almost primal need for human contact and comfort after being alone for so long.

“Harry–“ she whispers piteously against my lips.

I brush my tongue against the inside of her mouth and she lets out another little half-sob. Fresh tears roll down her cheeks and I growl possessively in the back of my throat, rubbing my face against them, smearing them between us. In this odd dream, I am aware of every part of her. Her heart is thumping a painful tattoo against the inside of her ribcage. The back of her neck is damp with sweat, a single fat drop breaking away to roll slowly down the valley of her spine. She’s doesn’t know how to handle the way I’m touching her, but that does nothing to stop the warm flush that builds in the center of her chest and spreads slowly across her skin. Unseen beneath her clothing, the peaks of her full breasts begin to tighten and grow erect. Unconsciously, she leans into me even more, her body offering itself willingly while her mind is still trying to decide what to do next.

She flinches when my hand slips beneath the hem of her blouse to trace the warm, smooth skin of her back, but deep within her core she responds properly, the delicate folds of her womanhood beginning to flutter and open, sweet shivers of pleasure tingling outwards as she readies herself for me.

She makes one more attempt to reason with me. “Harry, please don’t–“

I grasp a handful of her hair and jerk her head back forcefully, cutting her off and exposing the length of her slim throat, which I attack with my lips, first trailing hungry kisses down the side, then biting down on the place just above her collarbone, not hard enough to break the skin, but enough to leave an angry pink mark in the outline of my teeth. Lily gasps, more in discomfort than pleasure, but the sound thrills me all the same.

I shift my position, settling back on the floor with my legs crossed under me, and guide my mother so that she straddles my hips. She doesn’t fight me, but neither does she take part. For the moment I’m content with that, as I continue to ravish her neck and face with my mouth. The firm, deliciously-rounded globes of her backside fill my hands as I pull her closer, roughly kneading the taut flesh through the fabric of her skirt.

Lily’s face is glowing with a light sheen of sweat and the heady scent of her growing arousal drifts up from where her hips rest against mine. She whimpers again despairingly and presses her face into the crook of my neck, her arms wrapping around my chest and hugging me tightly. I recognize the gesture for what it is... a sign of surrender, but also her wanting to hold me just once more as a mother should.

I indulge her for a moment, my hands sliding up to return the hug. I feel her smile ruefully against my neck, then sigh and look up at me. Her fingers reach up to touch my face again, tracing a line along my eyebrow, then down my cheek. She runs the back of her hand along my jaw to the point of my chin. A tiny smile quirks the edges of her mouth and I wonder if she’s thinking of my father.

The thought ignites another violent surge of possessiveness in me, and I grasp her wrist, pulling her hand away. She hisses at the strength of my grip and a flash of remorse goes through me. I let her go and bow my head apologetically, my face pressing against her chest. Lily wraps her arms around me again, rubbing gentle circles into my back. I rub my face into the valley between her breasts and my hands gather up the hem of her skirt, fingertips brushing against the bare flesh of her hips.

Lily shivers, and I can feel gooseflesh rasing under my hands. Her embrace becomes more urgent, less maternal, her thighs instinctively trying to press together, gripping the sides of my legs between them. She begins to rock gently against me, her warm sex pushing against the hard ridge of my erection, with nothing more than a few thin layers of cloth separating us.

My hands slip even further beneath her skirt, caressing her smooth, perfect skin. She groans as I pull her even closer, grinding myself against her. She is a willing participant now, her small hands reaching between us to undo the buttons of my shirt, soft lips pressing against my neck, working up towards the side of my head.

“Lay back,” Lily whispers, her breath warm against my ear.

I do as she says and she follows me down, kissing along my jaw. She opens my shirt and pushes her hands up along my stomach to my chest, using the motion to draw herself up so that she is hovering over me, crimson hair falling away from her face as she looks down. She smiles and sits back on her heels, the weight of her body pressing down on my groin. She smiles again and slowly rolls her hips from side to side, making herself comfortable, then starts to unbutton her blouse.

She starts at the top, baring her flesh to me an inch at a time. The cloth parts to reveal flawless skin, lightly tanned and flushed a fetching shade of pink with her excitement. I lay back, pillowing my head with my hands, and watch my mother offer herself to me, hesitation and doubt having left her for now. My eyes trace the soft line of her shoulder, down her slender throat and into the valley of her breasts, wrapped in a simple black bra. Lily is a small woman, not much taller than my chin, but what she lacks in height she more than makes up for in full, lush curves. Instinctively, I lick my lips, wanting to roll my tongue around the tips of those generous mounds, to taste her as I once did years before.

She finishes removing her top and tosses it aside, then reaches behind her to take off the bra. I catch her hands and pull her down to me, kissing her again. My hands slide to the clasp of her bra and I undo it myself, moving her arms so that I can get the straps off. Wordlessly, I tell her to sit up. She does, leaving the scant covering behind.

In spirit form, she is still young enough that her breasts very nearly defy gravity. They have just the right jiggle to them, swaying slightly with her excited breathing and the tiny movements of her body. I pull her hips forward so that she is sitting on my stomach and bring her back down to me, so that I can indulge myself with one of her rosy, perked out nipples. It’s cool and firm against my lips. Lily shudders again and leans closer, her hands going to the back of my head, holding me in place while her arms push the objects of my attention closer together.

While I feast nostalgically on my mother’s breasts, my hands slide down to grip the waistband of her skirt. I start to pull it down, along with her knickers, and she shifts on top of me, trying to give me enough room to get it off of her without actually having to pull away from my still-busy mouth. After a few annoying seconds of that, I finally wise up and remember where I am. With a snap of my fingers, our clothing vanishes and I’m treated to the feeling of my mother’s warm body against mine, her wet furrow sliding along my belly.

She seems to enjoy it as well, letting out a little growl as she grinds herself into me even more. My left hand works its way around the outside of her leg and I run the edge of my thumb along her slit. Lily moans loudly and I feel the muscles of her legs quiver as a small climax radiates out from her core. She pulls her breast away from my mouth and scoots down, replacing it with her own, kissing me hungrily, my erection jutting between her legs and rubbing against the outside of her sex.

Lily reaches between us to grasp it, her fingers working along the hot shaft like a blind person trying to see with their hands. She grips it near the tip, her thumb rubbing along the top of the head, smearing the little drops of lubrication running down the bottom of my shaft all over it. She gathers a bit of it up and brings it up to her face, breaking our kiss so she can turn and suck it off her fingers.

She presses her forehead against mine. “I want to taste you, Harry,” she whispers. “Do you want to taste me?”

I tell her yes and kiss her again quickly before she lifts herself and turns around, settling down on top of me again, this time with her head poised over my manhood and her perfectly-formed, glistening pink snatch lowering down to my mouth. I lean forward and press my lips against her entrance, my tongue darting out to slowly run along the edges. She shudders again, more powerfully this time, and nearly collapses on top of me, pushing her hips closer to my face and laying her head down on my thigh so that I can feel her panting for air against my skin.

Lily rides out her second orgasm, snuggling the side of her face against my leg and placing loving little kisses at the base of my penis. Her left hand comes up to grasp me near the tip, and she slowly strokes it up and down, not trying to bring me off quite yet, just to work me up even more. As she reaches the top, she makes a little turning motion, rubbing part of her palm along the slit, gathering up more pre-come to ease the friction of her movements.

It doesn’t take long before she’s recovered enough to ease her weight off of me a little and turn her full attention to my aching manhood. I feel her sweat-damp hair sliding across my inner thighs as she works her way up the side, kissing and licking along my shaft, until her soft lips are poised at the very tip. She rolls her tongue slowly along the rim, getting a good taste, then takes me in as far as she can.

I stop what I’m doing so that I can enjoy the exquisite sensation of my mother’s warm mouth moving at a deliberate pace up and down my shaft. Occasionally, little slurping sounds fill the room as Lily moans softly around the pillar of flesh in her mouth.

As she continues to suck me off, Lily pushes her hips back towards my mouth, trying to tempt me back into my own efforts. Obligingly, I lean forward and lap at her sex, my thumb tracing a line around her clit, not quite touching it. I hear her whine in frustration, and I give her what she wants, thrusting my tongue deep inside of her and stimulating her directly.

My mother responds by working her mouth faster over my manhood, the slurping sounds becoming louder and more frequent. She moves her hand back up to my shaft, stroking it in counterpoint with her suckling mouth. I feel my release building and try to hold it off, wanting for us to cum together. I attack her dripping muff with my lips and tongue, working my way along the edges and into her core.

Lily starts to go rigid again a split second before I erupt into her mouth. She screams as best as she can while still trying to nurse me dry. Her hand flies along my shaft as it continues to swell and gush down her throat, and I can feel her tongue working furiously, trying to catch the excess. I don’t do half as well in trying to keep my attention on her pleasure, but I comfort myself by noting that this is Lily’s third climax, and only my first.

My cock give a few final spurts and I feel Lily begin to slow down, taking her time to hunt down and swallow every drop of my essence. With a wet sounding smack, she releases my organ and slowly licks her way up and down the shaft, cleaning me off. She returns to the tip to lap at a final bead of pearly cum, then lets out a satisfied little moan as I finish with my own patient cleansing of her most personal place.

After a moment, she lifts herself up again so that she can turn around and settle into my arms. My mother stretches languorously on top of me, her legs draping themselves on either side of mine and her sweat-slick breasts rubbing across my chest. We kiss again, tasting ourselves on each other’s tongue, and I sense her contentment and love for me shining through like a cloud lifting away from the sun.

I can sense other things about her as well. This Lily isn’t quite the same person that I had first met when I entered the dream. That person would have been horrified by what the two of us had just done. I wonder about that. My will gives me awareness and dominance over the physical aspects of this half-dream, and perhaps that same will has unconsciously bent Lily to my designs.

That thrilling feeling of possessiveness comes back again as I hold her in my arms, and I swear to myself that nothing, not even these mysterious higher beings that she told me had sent her, would ever take her away from me again.

Lily groans tiredly and holds me tighter as I start to stand up. I simply wrap an arm around her waist and lift her with me. Here I am as strong as I need to be. She snuggles into my chest as I take her into a bride’s carry and walk through the door back into the kitchen. The walls and floors of the small cottage are still moving and shifting colors like something out of a horror movie, but I have no trouble making my way down the hall and into the master bedroom.

The room was obviously decorated by a Gryffindor. The walls are deep crimson, which darkens even further into the color of pooled blood as I step inside. Pictures cover the wall, but instead of the happy scenes of a short but joyous marriage, the images depict scenes of carnage and bloodshed; rape and torture. Some of the scenes I recognize from my own memories, but most are new; fantasies and dim, unconscious plans that are even now building in the back of my mind.

I see myself standing over the butchered corpses of the people I once called my friends, see the frozen terror in their eyes as they stare blankly into the sky. Other frames show the events that led up to this. Me, screaming venom into the faces of Hermione and Ginny as I brutally torture them. Standing over Ron, laughing as he pleads for his life, and then introducing him and his family to the wonders of modern muggle technology via the unhappy end of a chainsaw. On the far wall, I see other scenes, of entire cities burning and crumbling, the survivors showing their true natures as they loot and rape and murder each other while trying to flee from the inevitable.

I throw my head back and laugh. Everything is suddenly so clear to me.

Dumbledore wants to save the world.

Voldemort wants to rule it forever.

Now I know what I want. To deny both of them their prize. To slaughter every single man, woman, and child alive, so that there was nothing left to rule. To salt the Earth so thoroughly that nothing could possible ever live there again. Lily had told me that the higher beings wanted souls. Well, if that was what they wanted, then I would give them so many souls that they would choke on them.

My skin tingles as a sense of unbridled power sweeps over me. It doesn’t matter that I have no idea how I’m going to accomplish any of this. The only thing that matters is that, for the first time in my life, my destiny is finally clear to me.

Lily lets out a little shriek as I dump her on the wide, four-poster bed. I am on top of her before she has a chance to bounce a second time, grasping one full breast with my left hand and snaking the right around her neck to yank her towards me, crushing our lips together. There is nothing loving in how I handle her, and she whimpers in discomfort. I ignore her, reaching down between us to guide myself to her entrance. I thrust inside of her as hard as I can and she gasps painfully at the rough intrusion, before wrapping her arms and legs around me, urging me deeper.

My mother and I rut wildly on my father’s bed. Her nails dig into my shoulders and I respond by latching onto her neck with my teeth, hard enough to draw blood. The dream begins to fragment around us, the walls of Godric’s Hollow crumbling into dust, revealing infinite darkness extending in every direction. Before long the room is nothing more than an island in a sea of nothingness, but I don’t care.

I turn Lily over and take her from behind. She buries her head in the pillows and thrusts back to meet me, the sound of our flesh slapping together echoing impossibly in the empty night. We change positions again because I want to look at her face. Her emerald eyes have lost the touch of sadness that they carried when I first met her, replaced by raw, naked hunger. The old Lily was gone; in its place something new, created by a years of aching solitude in a so-called “heaven” and my own reflected madness.

I kiss her again, just as my final climax hits. She moans into my mouth as I swell inside of her and reaches between us to rub at the top of her slit, urging her own orgasm on. In the distance, I hear the sound of a metal door slamming closed, and sense more than see the darkness surrounding us begin to lighten. My body starts to grow insubstantial and I suddenly realize that I’m finally waking up.

Lily notices it at the same time and screams in despair, clutching at me frantically. Not completely certain if what I had in mind was going to work, I grasp her by the sides of her face and focus in on her, letting my awareness touch every part of her, every part of her being. Somewhere behind me, I hear voices talking loudly, but I ignore them. Lily blinks in shock as her body begins to go hazy, dissolving into a bright, glowing mist that flows into me like water. In this place, she has no true physical form, so bringing her out with me should be as simple as merging her soul with mine. Simple in theory, but impossible anywhere except here. Our minds touch and I howl at the crushing sensation of a second lifetime of memories and experiences filling my brain.

The dream ends with a blinding flash of light and I find myself gasping for breath on a cold stone floor. My body aches, and my head is throbbing painfully in time with my heart. I look around in a daze and see that I’m surrounded by heavy brick walls. It’s barely ten paces from end to end, and behind me is a thick steel door with a narrow, hinged slat in the middle and no handle.

A jail cell.

“They can’t hold you,” Lily’s voice says off to the side. “Not like this.”

I look over towards the narrow cot and see her sitting there, fully dressed as she had been before, beaming a look of unabashed joy at me.

I tilt my head questioningly. “Are you really here?”

Lily stands and moves over to the wall. Her hand passes through like a ghost. She turns and walks towards me slowly, rolling her hips with each step. She reaches out again and strokes my chest. It’s warm and solid.

“I’m real to you,” she says. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

I smile at her. “It’s good enough for me.” I look around again. “You said they couldn’t hold me, but what did you mean? I don’t have a wand, so how do I get out?”

She chuckles. “You don’t need a wand to Apparate.”

“But I don’t know how to Apparate,” I hiss at her in annoyance.

Lily smiles at my frustration and goes up on her tiptoes to whisper in my ear. “You do now.”

And suddenly I did. The concept behind it is clear as day in my mind, and I feel as if I’ve done it a thousand times before.

“What was mine is now yours, Harry,” she says, nuzzling my cheek. “And all I have now is my knowledge.” She slips her arms around me. “Everything I learned when I was alive, and everything I’ve learned since I died.” She laughs again. “After all, what’s a lonely girl in the afterlife got to do, except study?”

I look down at her, a wicked smile spreading across my face. She returns it before reaching up to brush her lips across mine. Together we vanish with hardly a sound. Dumbledore and his Order wanted to make me a weapon, and they were about to find out just how deadly Harry Potter could become.

AN: I cringe at the number of clichés that I managed to fit into those last thousand words or so. Infinite blackness and soul-bonding and super-accelerated learning? Stop me while I vomit. But that’s where the story took me, so I could either write it the way it flowed in my head, or have it sit there and bug the shit out of me the way it has for three years now.

Besides, I blame the shitty authors who took those reasonablely decent ideas and raped them into uselessness for ruining it for the rest of us, so my hands are clean.

A quick note on the “Higher Beings”. For those of you who are worried that I’m going to turn this into some celestial good-vs-evil thing, have no fear. The HBs are just there to give Lily a backstory for what happened while she was dead. They probably won’t show up again, and if they do, Harry will happily kill the fuck out of them.

Metallica fans will be able to guess the title of the next installment. “We’re Off to Never-Never Land.” Here’s a spoiler. Everyone dies horribly, including Harry. Expect chainsaws, cannibalism, lots of lulzy rape, and possibly the detonation of several tactical nuclear weapons over large civilian populations to be involved. I’m still trying to figure out exactly how Harry will destroy the world and slaughter every person on it, but rest assured that, one way or another, he will.

Big D