Harry opened his eyes. Nothing changed. He blinked and tried again. The darkness remained, accompanied by a strangely familiar smell of dust and spiders. Harry reached out his hand, but before he could find the door, it opened of its own accord, and light flowed into the cupboard—his cupboard. Harry stared as a smaller version of himself—perhaps six or seven years old—blinked in the pale yellow light from the hall. Harry tried to touch the hand of his younger counterpart, but older Harry's hand slipped right through as if he himself were a ghost.
Ghost Harry turned to his guide, who was looking around the cupboard with a sneer of disgust. “Why exactly are we here?” Harry inquired, as his younger self shut the door again but for a crack, leaving himself light enough to dress by.
“I am showing you a Christmas from your past, to remind you of happier days, and convince you that you can return to them again, so to speak,” Snape said flatly.
“Some happier days,” Harry snorted. “I was miserable at the Dursleys'. Strike one for you, Snape. Try again, why don't you?”
“Not so fast, Potter,” Snape drawled. “Your memory fails you. Wait and watch.”
Harry frowned. Before he could reply, his smaller self pushed open the door again and crept into the hall, making as little noise as possible. Soundlessly, the ghosts followed.
The hall was lit by shafts of early morning sunlight, dust floating down them to the hardwood floor, cold under the child's bare feet. Through the small window in the front door, the sun was rising. Harry could remember many mornings like this, sneaking out of bed on a Saturday morning while the Dursleys slept late, tip-toeing into the kitchen to steal an apple or a muffin. There was something different about this morning, though; something different about the child's face.
A smile, Harry realized. Young Harry was smiling, his wide eyes glowing in anticipation as he crept, ever so carefully, bypassing the dark kitchen, entering the sitting room. Still creeping, cat-like, he clambered into Uncle Vernon's large armchair and curled up into a ball, thin arms grasping knobbly knees. The child's green eyes reflected the red and white lights of the tree, the gold and silver baubles, the star perched on top. Harry stood in the doorway, staring at the child, who was still staring at the tree.
Beneath the tree, piles upon piles of presents overflowed across the floor and up onto the coffee table. Young Harry made no move to examine them. Older Harry knew there was no need. Only one would bear the child's name, and it would contain a coat hanger, a few tissues, or perhaps a threadbare pair of hand-me-down socks. Still, there was something joyous and peaceful about this silent, solitary moment, something that was almost like a gift.
Harry knew that any moment now, his cousin Dudley would come lumbering down the stairs, waking his parents and clamouring for his presents. Then Harry would be booted into the kitchen to start breakfast while Dudley opened his packages and threw a tantrum because some trinket he desperately needed had been overlooked. Uncle Vernon would rush out to buy the missing toy while Aunt Petunia comforted her sobbing Dudders. Meanwhile, Harry would sneak an orange and a couple of pieces of bacon into a handkerchief in the conveniently large pocket of his ill-fitting trousers, saving them from his cousin's greedy fingers.
After breakfast, Aunt Petunia would shoo Harry out of the kitchen and into his cupboard, throwing his lone present after him to keep him occupied so she could cook Christmas dinner. Aunt Marge would show up around one with one of her horrendous hounds, who would bark ferociously at the door of the cupboard until Aunt Marge held it back long enough for Harry to come out. He would then be forced to sit through an hour and a half of Uncle Vernon and Aunt Marge's increasingly boisterous conversation, with only his meager portion of Aunt Petunia's mediocre cooking to occupy him. Finally, Dudley would be finished stuffing himself, and they both would be excused. Harry would then hurriedly don his coat and escape outdoors before Dudley became bored with his toys and came looking for his favorite punching bag.
All that, however, was not yet arrived, and for now young Harry was content. For now, he was happy. These stolen moments of solitude, his future self realized, were what kept him sane during those years of neglect and bullying.
“Alone, you were happy.” Harry jumped as Snape spoke from behind him. Harry turned and glared at his old professor, leaving the child to gaze at the lighted tree alone.
“Yeah, some happiness.” Harry scowled. “Anyway, if you're trying to tell me I shouldn't be alone on Christmas, why are you showing me how wonderfully happy I was by myself? What's the point of this?”
“The point,” Snape responded, “Is that it didn't remain this way. Come. We're finished here.” Harry took one more backward glance at the child and the lights before the scene blurred and darkened.
The darkness resolved itself into the Gryffindor Common Room. Harry, still looking very young, was sprawled in front of the fire next to a rather short and extremely freckly Ron Weasley. Between the two boys was a large pile of food, toasted and un-toasted, ranging from muffins to marshmallows to sausage. “If you were going to be trapped in the dungeons for a week,” Ron was saying, in a much more high-pitched voice than Harry remembered, “and could only bring one type of sandwich with you, what would it be?”
“Not sausage-and-marshmallow,” young Harry replied emphatically. “Bleargh.” Older Harry couldn't help but chuckle as his first-year counterpart and his best friend proceeded to have a very serious and drawn-out debate about the relative merits of various types of sandwich when one was trapped in the dungeons.
“But what sort of bread would you put on it?” Harry wondered. “White bread gets too soggy. What if you dropped the sandwich on the floor? It would soak up all sorts of dungeon yuck if it were white bread.”
“That's why you don't drop your sandwich on the floor, genius,” Ron replied in exasperation. “But I suppose you could use pumpernickel bread, just in case. That's sturdy.”
“I don't like pumpernickel bread,” Harry complained. “Can anchovies go on a sandwich, do you think?”
“Anchovies? Gross! I'd rather eat dirt,” Ron exclaimed, pulling a face. Harry scowled and tossed the nearest pillow at him. It missed and instead knocked over a teetering stack of toast. “Now look what you've done, you've got toast crumbs all over the squishiest pillow,” Ron observed, chucking a piece of toast at his friend. An impromptu food-and-pillow-fight ensued, in which much toast was wasted, many marshmallows consumed, and one pillow barely saved from catching fire.
“How touching,” Snape drawled finally, his voice pulling Harry out of the scene by the fireplace and back to the corner of the Common Room where they stood watching. “But I believe we've seen enough. Are you back in your right mind yet, Potter?”
Harry blinked. “Well...Yeah...No, I mean...I know I was happy then, but I was eleven. That was before anything happened, any war, any death...things were different then.”
Snape's lips thinned in a fearsomely accurate impression of Minerva McGonagall. “Very well, Potter,” he said finally. “We go again.”
When the darkness disappeared for the third time, it took Harry a moment to recognize his surroundings. Snow was falling in a small, silent graveyard. It was dark, but yellow light leaked from the doorway of a nearby church, from which the sounds of a choir singing carols could be heard. Harry shivered, though he could not feel the cold.
“Over there,” Snape said, pointing. Harry looked, and saw two strangers; a balding man and a small, mousy-looking woman. Frowning, Harry glanced back at Snape, who raised a thick eyebrow drily, and walked noiselessly toward the couple where they stood over a tombstone.
“It doesn't mean defeating death in the way the Death Eaters mean it, Harry,” said the woman. Harry gasped in realization and stepped closer to look into the woman's face. Sure enough, although she was a stranger, her wrinkled brow as she looked up at the man held a distinctly Hermione-ish expression. “It means...you know...living beyond death. Living after death.”*
Harry's heart sank for a moment with the same grief he knew his Polyjuiced self was feeling, as the middle-aged man began to cry. Harry's eyes were drawn, though, not to the tears falling to the snow, but to the couple's hands, grasped tightly between them. The woman conjured a wreath and gave it to the man, who placed it on the grave. The man and woman put their arms around each other and began slowly to walk away. Harry remained where he was, watching them and realising that even then, in his darkest hour, there had been those who remained to shine a light.
“Come on, then,” Snape grumbled, gliding over the snow to where Harry stood. “We are on a tight schedule, Potter. That's enough dawdling.”
* DH, Ch 16, p. 328 US hardcover version
Comfort and Joy by Luna_Lover
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you for reading! Please review!