A/N: Thank you so much for all of the reviews I've received until this point – especially to those of you who reviewed on the last chapter. It's for you guys that I write when I can!

Disclaimer: Still own nothing, except for the storyline of this fanfic! Oh, and the horrendous grammatical errors/spelling mistakes. I'm sorry, everyone, but I just wated to get this one out as soon as possible!

Warning: Underage drinking – something that no good kid should do (but probably will do anyway – you know who you are!)

...

It was hard to say exactly what it was that woke him up, but Harry was tempted to say it was the lump rising in his throat. It was like a tight, iron band was constricting it from the inside and making it ridiculously difficult to breathe.

Eyes closed, he allowed his consciousness to remain suspended in the alien feeling. It was odd.

Rather uncomfortable, actually.

And it was only as awareness of the world around him started trickling in – the subtle, musty scent that no amount of cleaning could remove; crisp bed sheets weighing down on him; a slightly lumpy mattress beneath him – that so did his sense of lucidity. This poignant feeling, this was—

This was wanting to cry. Wanting, and yet inexplicably denying himself that. He had no idea why he wanted to cry, or what had caused him this sense of anguish, but the longer it went on, the more nostalgic he felt.

It wasn't the same as mourning war victims, or shedding tears of frustration as he had throughout his years as a student during his various trials and hardships. And it certainly wasn't anything like his detached, out of control crying the night before.

No, this feeling was being locked in his cupboard under the stairs and hugging his thin, ratty cover over his head. It was being scared of the darkness that he was stuck in, inside his tiny little bedroom, and knowing that he couldn't get out. Knowing that no one was there to hold him, and that the person on the other side of that horrible metal grate was sneering down at him in disgust.

In short, it was the sort of irrational fear that only a scared, lonely child could harbour.

He released a shuddering breath and let himself float in that bloated, overwhelming emotion, suspended in musty, half forgotten thoughts from his childhood. The whispers of his five year old self whispered back at him, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry... I'll be better, I'll be a good boy, I'm sorry."

After an undefined amount of time in that place, absorbing the feelings and realising how whole they made him feel, Harry let himself stir.

Dragging himself back towards reality, he blearily opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling.

His first thought was that, bloody hell, his head was sore. The second was that, actually, everything was sore.

His ribs ached like he'd been punched, and everywhere that his skin met his bedding and clothing, it stung terribly. It felt like he was covered in blisters or cuts.

The young man lay there for a long moment, feeling disoriented and upset.

When he'd finally gathered himself enough to attempt to move, he sucked in a slow, deep breath and reached out across the mattress, deciding to get hold of his glasses. Unfortunately, he had to abort the task when lifting his arm had caused a sharp pain to crawl across his overly sensitised skin, like a healing scab pulled taut over a wound.

He groaned in frustration and no small amount of pain, finding even the act of grimacing to be painful.

Still, he wasn't a Gryffindor for nothing, and after a moment more of wallowing in his baffled sense of self pity, he pushed passed the pain and stubbornly sat up. He initially had the feeling that he was either going to throw up or black out from the very distinctive smarting at the front of his forehead, but he was made of tougher stuff.

And besides, the pain was stomach-churningly familiar, like an old enemy resurrected from the dead.

"Oh, bloody hell," he croaked, only to discover that his throat was raw like he'd screamed himself hoarse.

It took him no small amount of time to lever himself up out of bed, but once his naturally poor vision was restored to some semblance of usefulness by his glasses he found that no, his skin wasn't bruised or broken. Which maybe should have concerned him a little more than it did considering the intensity of the phantom pains, but to be frank his head just hurt way, way too much to make much sense of the situation.

Somewhere between dragging himself out of bed and toppling into the wall by the bathroom door, he reached a hand up to wipe the sticky, clammy sweat from his brow and found, to his horror, blood.

Okay, so maybe he was in a little more trouble than he'd initially thought.

He desperately reasoned with himself not to panic, somehow stumbled through the doorway and over to the sink where he stared at the swollen, bleeding mess that was his scar, and... promptly emptied the contents of his stomach into the sink.

What a brilliant start to a brand new day.

...

It was a few hours later into the morning when he found himself once again in the sitting room, pacing back and forth over the rug, fists in his hair and eyes troubled.

He couldn't even begin to explain the panic shooting through him. His scar had been fading—

His scar—

And... and he was just so inexplicably alive with worry, at all the implications of this latest disaster. Because, what the heck did it even mean?

His curse scar had begun to fade after the final battle, the extermination of its creator and the dispersion of the poison harboured inside of him finally allowing it to heal. It had been perhaps one of the best things to happen to him after the war was over, because it meant that finally – finally – he was free of his duties, free of the prophesy, and free of being The Boy Who Lived. Even if no one else was willing to see that.

But now...

Well, now Harry felt the insane need to retrieve his invisibility cloak from wherever Kreacher had packed it away, and hide under it until he either starved to death or talked himself to insanity. Both options seemed amazingly tempting, considering the alternatives (most of which meant sitting down and thinking about the situation logically).

Because thinking about things logically might just mean he would have consider whether or not Voldemort was, potentially, back again.

Somehow.

Impossibly.

Or if maybe, just maybe, I've done something colossally stupid again, he thought to himself. Because to be quite frank, the hazy, half-formed memories of a dream that lingered just on the edges of his mind suggested that that was really quite likely.

Harry rarely cursed – it just wasn't part of his nature. He felt, though, that even years of the Dursley's reinforcement about his freakishness were moot.

"Fuck!"

The upholstery of the couch exploded in an angry burst of uncontrolled magic.

Harry didn't even stop pacing long enough to notice.

...

There was the distant sound of footsteps and muffled voices, saying things he couldn't quite bother himself to make sense of.

Then some inconsiderate git decided it'd be a great idea to turn the lamps on full.

"—rry?"

"Merlin's pants ... is he ... firewhiskey?!"

"... Should get Pomfrey ... a total mess—"

"—Harry?"

"Why ... can't even look after ... boys!"

Someone poked him in the ribs, which really shouldn't have hurt as much as it did. He groaned, but the sound hurt his throat so he very quickly stopped.

"Oi, Harry, y'alright, mate?"

"Oh for goodness— Harry James Potter!"

Harry stirred muzzily on the cold kitchen floor and for a long second the pain of his first proper hangover eclipsed the burning of his scar. But then that moment passed, and the weight of all his aches and pains acted like a slap in the face.

"Mnurgh," he moaned emphatically against the dank stone tile his face was pressed into. When even that one sound proved to be too difficult to properly pronounce, he raised his hands to his head and buried his face against his palm.

Apparently at some point he'd misplaced his glasses. Probably around the time that he'd fallen out of his chair.

But he didn't have enough time to contemplate over this minor revelation, because suddenly there were hands under his armpits and he was being hoisted back up onto his seat. He gave a startled yelp of protest at the flare of hurthurthurt that the contact solicited, and flailed an arm weakly in the general direction of his attacker.

"Gerrof."

There was a snort of laughter, followed by a whack and a petulant "Ow!"

Deciding to finally brave the accursed pain of the lamp light, he squinted at the two figures stood in front of him. Blinking myopically up at his two closest friends, Harry couldn't help the pang of clamouring panic. How could he tell them?

Would he tell them?

He seriously considered keeping it all a secret from them as Hermione scolded Ron for having the emotional capacity of a flobberworm, but then they both turned around – Ron with a childish pout and Hermione with a look of concern – and his barely made decision crumbled. He couldn't keep anything from his friends – least of all this.

It was as Hermione was gently pushing his glasses back onto his nose that the decision was taken from him anyway. Her fingers stilled as he flinched back, but she didn't withdraw them. He felt them trembling against his skin as they gently raked his fringe away from his forehead, exposing his scar.

Harry watched a litany of emotions flash across her face – shock, disbelief, realisation, fear – before she gulped heavily and finally pulled her hand away.

Not before Ron could see it too, though. There were no words to describe the disintegration of worried humour into a terrifyingly familiar expression of resignation. Bad things happen in this world, that look seemed to say, and there is no escape from that fact.

"Harry," Hermione whispered, and even that was shaky. There was nothing but pleading in her tone, as if she was wishing he might jump up at any moment and declare it all to be a joke.

"Oh bloody hell, mate," Ron was pale – so pale – and clenching his fists against his trouser legs.

Harry opened and closed his mouth like a fish, wondered briefly whether or not he wanted to ball or throw up, realised he'd done far too much of both recently and just collapsed, boneless, against his chair. He felt so, so drained.

"What's going on?" Hermione asked with no small amount of trepidation after a long, drawn out moment.

The dark haired boy was terribly lost about where he ought to begin, and so said instead, "Could I have a headache potion? Or a Pepper Up, or something? It feels like a herd of hippogriffs have stampeded straight over my skull."

"You look like it, too," was Ron's tentative try at humour.

"Remind me to never drink again," Harry grunted in agreement.

...

After a litany of potions and a strong, black coffee, Kreacher had shooed the three teenagers away from the kitchen and the empty firewhiskey bottle and into a small, barely used morning room (if it could be called that). Harry had never been inside before, having always presumed that it must just be a cupboard of some kind. Kreacher muttered under his breath that it had been filled with his 'collectibles' until recently (or something of the the sort), and really none of the stressed teens cared enough to get him to say more.

The room was just big enough to hold four ancient, high backed armchairs, a tiny little coffee table in the centre which was standing on a set of precariously spindly legs, and a pair of very shrivelled old bonsais on either side of the tall, thin window. The wallpaper – a florid pattern of what seemed to be... bleeding roses? – apparently defied even permanent sticking charms in order the peel damply in the corners.

Harry pulled his gaze from the disdainful sneer of the rooms rather lemon faced portrait (a middle aged lady with an unfortunately high collared robe and the colouring of a very ill vampire) and let his attention fall back onto his anxiously awaiting friends.

"What's going on, Harry?" Hermione prompted gently, voice soothing against the backdrop of the pitter-patter rain on the window. Yes, apparently it was still raining outside – but then again, that was England for you.

He sighed, trying to figure out when he should even begin. "I told you guys about Professor Dumbledore and Kings Cross when I got hit with Voldemort's killing curse, right?" There were nods of assent from both friends, and Harry couldn't hold in his sheepish grimace. "Well, I... maybe didn't tell you everything. We... we weren't the only people there. There was also this— this little kid, and it was all bloody and wailing—"

Hermione gasped into her hand. "What? There was a child? Oh, the poor thing!"

Harry hummed his agreement and shrugged his sore shoulders awkwardly. "I was going to help it but, err... Well, Dumbledore arrived before I could, and he said that I couldn't do anything for it, so then we walked away and he told me about—"

"Hang on a second, you just left it there?" Ron looked horrified, like someone had just informed him that the Chudley Cannons were being officially disbanded.

"I was a little preoccupied at the time," Harry couldn't help but snap, "you know, what with having just died."

Ron held his hands up in defeat and Hermione prompted a sickly, tired and altogether miserable Harry to continue.

"Anyway, you guys know how the rest of the battle happened. I guess everything really started getting weird after a couple of days." He was uncomfortable talking about this part, but it was like he couldn't physically stop himself. "Whenever I've fallen asleep, I've been having nightmares about all the different things we saw. Nightmares –" he repeated with clear emphasis when Hermione frowned unhappily at him. He wasn't going to start up that argument again. "– that always ended the same way. At the end of every dream, there'd be this huge flash of light, and then this horrible wailing sound. That's when I'd wake up."

"And that's the reason your magic's been lashing out?" Ron questioned carefully, looking somewhat confused "You're being... what, haunted by the fact you didn't help the kid?"

"It didn't really occur to me before, but yeah, I guess maybe I was," he agreed.

Hermione was staring intently at the coffee table, a look of deep concentration crossing her face. Then her eyes widened and she looked up to meet Harry's eyes. "Who was the child, Harry? Who was it?"

The dark haired boy gulped and looked away from his friends knowing hazel gaze, feeling for all the world like a naughty schoolboy that had been caught out passing notes in class. "Well, funny you should ask that, because... It sort of turned out that the kid was, maybe – perhaps – Tom Riddle," he mumbled, and memories of the child's fear and broken crying and the need to do nothing more than pick him up and pull him close and comfort him shot through Harry again like a kick in the gut.

"Wait a second, the kid was Voldemort?!" Ron, predictably, exploded. Harry chanced a glance at the ginger's face and saw dismay there. "You— you knew it was Voldemort and you still helped?"

"What would you do, Ron? Would you have left him there?"

"If it was that evil, murdering bastard then yeah, I'd like to think so!"

There was that nostalgic, childlike urge to cry bubbling up again in the very back of his mind, but Harry pushed the out-of-place emotion aside forcefully and glowered at his lanky, freckled friend. "I already said, it wasn't Voldemort – he's dead. It was a bloody four year old kid Ron; he was just a scared, hurt little boy!"

"'Just', he says," Ron scoffed in disbelief. "'Just'!"

"Both of you stop it! Be quiet for a moment so I can think, okay?"

The two fell into an unhappy silence, Ron with a loud, unsavoury 'harrumph!', and Harry by pulling his feet up onto the chair to wrap his arms around his legs.

The quiet seemed to stretch on around the forced truce for a long while as Hermione apparently thought over the situation. Harry was certain that were the rain to stop for a moment, the sound of Hermione's whirring mind might take its place.

"So then, until your most recent dream, you've woke up before you can get too far in?" she finally questioned.

"Yeah. Before the setting even materialised."

"But this one time, for some reason, you were stuck there?"

Harry cleared his throat quietly, before giving his hesitant answer. "Uh-huh."

A great gush of air escaped Hermione. "I told you that Dreamless Sleep wouldn't solve anything – I told you that you should just try to talk to someone about your problems, but would either of you listen?"

"I don't think you can reasonably take credit for knowing that Harry would resurrect Voldemort just for a good nights sleep, Hermione," Ron added in moodily.

"I haven't resurrected him!" Harry snapped, at the very same moment as the frizzy haired young lady chided, "Don't be ridiculous, Ronald."

"Well, what else would you call it? Because right now I'm pretty sure you've either resurrected the darkest wizard of all time, or you've finally just cracked, mate! Normal people don't just imagine this stuff up."

"Yeah? Well we've already come to the unfortunate conclusion that I'm not a normal person, haven't we? I mean, it's only taken you seven years to notice."

"No, because after everything we've been through, I would've thought that a normal person would realise that he could actually talk to his friends and family before he went and did something as colossally stupid as this."

"Well there's the problem, I guess. Because you seem to have forgotten that I don't have a family, you—"

"That – is – enough!" And Hermione was on her feet, haired seeming to crackle with static and shoulders squared as she stared down the two irritable teenagers. "Can't either of you appreciate how serious this situation could potentially be? I understand that you've both been through a lot, but so has everybody. I'm sick of always playing the voice of reason around the two of you, so either you both grow up, or you just leave each other alone for a little while! Got it?"

Ron apparently took this as a veiled suggestion for him to leave, because in a moment he was out of his seat and barging through the door. He threw over his shoulder as he left, "When you're ready to accept that we are your family, you git, then you know where to find me."

With that, he was gone.

Harry thought that he might have felt touched by the words, if only he weren't so upset and frustrated. So much for that Calming Draught doing him any good.

Opposite him, Hermione sighed tiredly, eased herself back down into her chair like every one of her bones ached and rubbed her forehead. "Ignore him, Harry, he's not been doing so well himself," she said wearily and the dark haired young man finally looked at her properly. She looked exactly how he felt.

"Sorry," he all but whispered, and the word was sincere.

"Actually, it's sort of a relief," she giggled weakly. "I mean, you've been so... so distant and unresponsive recently that it's sort of a relief to see you've gotten a little of your spark back. It's frustrating, but at least it's a step in the right direction, huh?"

Harry, somehow both baffled and reassured, gave a one shouldered shrug and wan smile.

The pale girl seemed to pick herself back up at the look, straightening her back and letting her expression hardened up again. "Now he's out of the way for a while, how about you tell me everything? Let's see what we can work out."

Harry might still feel like rubbish, but at least this was something he could do – at least he knew precisely how to deal with Hermione when she was intent of getting to the bottom of some mystery.

...

A/N: So... How was it? It was fun to write, at least ... Though it did sort of end up writing itself and going off on a tangent. I apologise that nothing much happens, but the drama might take a while to unfold. I don't plan for the story to be solely angst and moping around (though... when have I ever had a say in the directions my stories head in?)

Anyway, please review, you guys. I just want to know what all of you think.

- Aquaphobe (25/05/2014)