Harry Potter and the Dream of Fate

As Harry collected himself, he started on his third letter. This time he had his picture propped up on his desk. It was smudged a bit on the frame where the tear had hit, but it was still extremely lovely. He began his letter to Hermione. This time he told her all about his picture, his good mood and he even invited her over to Privet Drive for the day. It was a crazy thought and Harry even stopped to consider it. It would be the first time ever he would actually invite someone over, and since Ron was in New York, who else would he invite?

He made up his mind and decided to send it. He went over to Hedwig's cage and stopped, because she wasn't there. "Right," Harry said out loud, "She's got the letter to Sirius." He had no idea how long it would take her to make the trip, but he hoped it was soon. It was only 7 o' clock in the morning though, he still had plenty of time. He figured if she wasn't back by 8, he would just go outside and fetch an owl. Even though it would be a bit odd. He decided to relax for a second and turned on the TV. "Life doesn't get much better than this," he thought. At about 7:30 he heard a rush of feather's come through the window upstairs and sprinted to it. Sure enough, Hedwig was there and she looked really tired. "He must be close," Harry said to her as he pet her and stroked her feathers. "Can you handle another mission, girl?" he said, and Hedwig looked like she was considering this. After about a second or two she lifted her crown to the ceiling and stuck out her leg. "Great!" Harry said and gave Hedwig his letter.

About one hour after Hedwig had left, the doorbell rang. Harry's heart started to beat quickly as a million questions ran through his brain. Was it the Dursleys? Had they forgotten something? Was it all just a nasty joke? What would happen if they found out he had sent letters to other wizards? What about Hermione? The cupboard was his new home for sure.

In some way, shape or form Harry got that door. He still doesn't know how, but he did.

* * * * * * * * * *

He inched toward the door, trying not to think of what would happen to him if it was the Dursleys. He opened the door slowly, while his heart stopped beating and when he got a look of who it was, his jaw dropped. Standing there in living color was Hermione. "Happy Birthday Harry!" she said and gave him a humongous hug. "Hermione..." He was stuttering in amazement. "I..I can't believe it!" She let him go and his cheeks were quit red. "Sorry I didn't call first," she explained, "I didn't have your number!"

"That's okay." Harry let Hermione in as she signaled her parents to leave. They opened the window slightly and yelled, "Call us when you're ready to go!" Hermione smiled at them as they waved and drove off.

Hermione had a shiny blue bag and a small white box with her. She lifted the box and said "cake" and walked right towards the kitchen. She set it right onto the kitchen table. When she came back she handed the bag to Harry. "Happy Birthday!" she said quite flustered and took a seat on the couch. After removing all the tissue paper he found a small black sphere at the bottom of the bag. He looked at it unusually. At first he thought it was a bludger, but Hermione would never get him something like that. "Er-" He started. He didn't know what to do with it.

"Well open it!" Hermione squealed. Harry felt a jolt of ignorance flash through him. "Oh, right," he said. That was pretty logical. He opened it to reveal a magnificent golden watch hidden inside. The face of it was so shiny it looked like crystal and it had a small flying snitch in it. The two hands had little black spots at the ends to resemble bludgers. "Oh, wow Hermione!" he said. This must have cost her a fortune, not to mention she had to have bought it at a wizarding store.

"Do you really like it?" as her face contorted into doubt.

"Heck yes!" And a large grin took over her face. "I know yours broke last year," she said

Harry just smiled.

She nodded gleefully and signaled the cake in the kitchen. She went in to get it along with a couple small plates and glasses filled with milk. Harry had no idea how she knew where everything was, but he didn't mind, the only thing he could think about now was how yummy that cake looked. It was a chocolate cake and Hermione told Harry that she had made it herself. If she was a good witch she was a doubly good cook. The cake was just perfect and they practically ate all of it, but Hermione insisted that they leave some for Ron, since they were bringing him candy.

As Harry was receiving wonderful presents and sharing cake with Hermione, someone else on the other side of the planet, whose birthday it also happened to be, wasn't exactly having a party. Actually, she was being arrested.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Get off of me!" a scrawny girl screamed at the policeman. "Get off, GET OFF!" She slapped him blindly with her right hand. "OFF OF ME!"

"No can do little lady," said the auburn-haired American policeman. "Wanna do the crime, gotta pay the time." He chuckled at his own little poem.

"I didn't commit no crime, moron!" she said and stopped slapping. It wasn't doing any good.

"Everything you say CAN and WILL be used against you in the court of law-"Wwith that he handcuffed her to a light post. "Stay here," he said, "I'm going to go get something to eat, you just 'hang out'." He started to laugh heartily. "Hang out? Get it?"

"Whatever you say, insect," she said through gritted teeth. He walked into the mini-mart, and an evil smile spread over her face. She stared down at her handcuffs. "Open, unlock, come on!" she said, "You did it before, just unlock!" She shook the cuffs madly. Then she stopped moving them and stared at them while reciting "unlock" in her head. The cuffs wiggled a bit, but no unlocking. She heard some footsteps down the other end of the street and turned around. She saw a large family, all with flaming red hair, walk down the street. "Fred, stop making yourself so obvious!" said a small pudgy woman wearing a blinding hot pink shirt and jeans, which clashed horribly with her hair.

Her eyes widened. "Hello, excuse me, hello!" she yelled at them, but no one even turned. She remembered the name the woman said before and tried it. "FRED!" she screamed, hoping she got the name right. One of the redheaded boys turned, and naturally so did everyone else. "Um, hi.." she started, giggling nervously. She didn't want all that attention. "Can any of you give me a hand, uh, I, I'm kinda stuck." She eyed the hearty lady with a grin. "Please," she said tilting her head to the side. The tallest redheaded man turned to the woman. "Molly, we shouldn't trust the muggles, they may trick us." Anger rose through her body once more, she had no idea what a muggle was, but she didn't like it. "Never mind!" she yelled, "I'm not fan of forced hospitality!" She turned to her cuffs again. "Unlock, come one, please!"

"Excuse me dear," The plump woman with red hair was still there. "I believe the word your looking for is Alohomora." The girl gave her a puzzled look, then turned to her lock. "It's worth a shot..." she mumbled. "Alohomora," she said, and the lock clicked instantly. She looked back to the woman, but they were all gone. "Geez, lady," she said, "thanks!"

She thought of what she had done for a second. Had she just unlocked those cuffs with words? She had been doing crazy things like that lately, that's why she wasn't in jail yet. For some reason or another she got herself out of the tightest situations, either by wishing or saying weird words in some Latin language that just popped in her head. She hadn't told anyone of course, they would probably send her to an asylum.

As she was running these thoughts through her mind, she noticed the policeman coming out of the mart. So she ran. And ran and ran and ran. She simply ran away with no idea where she was going, she rarely ever did. It's not like anyone was waiting for her, she had no home, no family, no friends. She was just a drifter, but not just any ordinary drifter at that. As she ran she hadn't noticed the extremely huge man standing there in her way and "Umph..." ran right into him.

"Uh, sorry, sir," she said holding her head and turned to get around him, but he was enormous. At least to her he was, for she was only 5 feet tall. This guy had to be at least 8 feet 6'. So she looked up, and almost fell over, and saw a pair of black sparkly eyes behind a huge bushy black beard. "End o' the line," he said in a husky voice, which also had a strong British accent attached to it. Just like the redheaded family she had seen before. "What's with all the brits today?" she thought, then responded to the massive giant. "Sorry, I don't think so," she said in the most polite voice she could muster. She turned to walk around him, but he stuck out a long pink umbrella right in front of her. "Look mister," she began. "You let me by right now or I'll get the police here pronto." The man arched his eyebrow. "Yeh will?"

She stuttered, but she couldn't think of something to say. He had obviously seen her running from the policemen, and now she had no protection. If she called the police, she would have gotten caught, and if she went with this guy, she would be thought of as an easy target. She was NOT an easy target. He spoke first. "Yeh used a bit o' magic jus' now," he said with a grin, and chuckled shortly. "What are you talking about?" she laughed, long and loud so he would get the point that she thought he was crazy. "Great, " she said, still laughing, "I've been corned by a complete loon! That's all I needed! Well, I would stay, but I've got to go meet the Easter Bunny, you know, that annual tea party the Tooth Fairy always holds about this time every year, yeah, that's it, bye now!"

She turned around. If she couldn't go around him, she'd just go back. She took a couple steps and heard sirens coming towards her. She turned quickly on her heel and walked back to the stranger. "What's your offer?" she said quickly. "'ello, name's Hagrid." And he smiled, the tip of his broom was pointed towards the cop cars but she didn't notice. "What do you want with me?" she said, "This is New York, if you want a 15 year old girl, just go to Central Park, there's millions!" He didn't look convinced, she was a bit worried.

The cars came closer and the girl got jumpier. "We've got to get out of here!" she screamed, and Hagrid got the picture. He took her wrist and walked into a dark alleyway that she had never noticed before.

"Thanks, uh, Hagrid is it?" He nodded and she continued. "I've found a new hide out that's for sure," she said looking around the small alley, it came to a dead end, and compared to the rest of the this side of town it was quite clean. She smiled at Hagrid and waited until the cars had gone by completely. Once they were out of sight, she nodded at him and started to walk out. As her foot lifted to leave she felt a strange sensation come over her, and she couldn't move. "Heh." She let out a weak laugh. "Seems my foot fell asleep." Amazed by this lack of function in her body, she looked up at Hagrid. He didn't seem very amused though. He just looked down at her and said, "Yeh comin' wit me, eh, wass yeh name?" She looked at him suspiciously. "I don't have to tell you anything about me," she said flatly.

Hagrid looked at her and sighed. "True, now less go." She gave him a fake laugh. "Sorry, but see I don't know you, so I can't possibly be going anywhere with you."

"Oh, I see," said Hagrid, "Yeh'd ratha go wit the please-officers."

"Er..."

"I 'ave orders so dun't flatta yerself on why yer comin wit me."

She looked at him incredulously. "You have orders?" She smiled, but really she just wanted to get out of there as fast as she could. "What are you in the mafia or something?" Luckily, her sarcasm wasn't affected by fear.

"I's nothin personal. I jus foun out I had to come get you about, oh, say.." He pulled up a sleeve on his mole-skin coat to reveal a very odd looking watch. "Five minutes ago."

"Uh huh, and you knew exactly where I was?" She was getting impatient. The police were gone and she could definately leave if she wanted to. Except that her legs were frozen.

"Yeh don't have any place to go, oh, an' there's this tiny detail on why yeh're comin' wit me." Hagrid's voice was soft, and he bent down on his knees so that his eyes were level to hers.

He was about to say something important when she cut him off. "I asked you a question!" she said rudely. "How did you know where I was?" Hagrid was growing impatient and was about to just give up hope on this one. This assignment wasn't going as well as he had planned. "Uh." He tried to speak as calmly as possible. "I got directions from the headmaster." She looked at him silently for a second, considering the information. Then she looked at him and threw her arms up in the air. "Headmaster? What kind of idiot sends you to come and get me, huh!?" That was it. Hagrid blew up and he couldn't help it. "YEH WILL NEVA INSULT ALBUS DUMBLEDORE IN FRONT OF ME, OR IN FRONT OF ANYONE ELSE, YA HEAR!" he boomed, she shook and a little bomb exploded in her stomach. It was one she hadn't felt for a while and it was a mixture of fear and guilt. For some reason she just wanted to cower herself and run away, but she couldn't. She especially couldn't let him know that she was scared. So she used a talent of her own, her ability to scream louder than anyone else.

"YOU WILL NOT COME OVER HERE, ABDUCT ME FROM WHEREVER, TELL ME TO GO SOMEWHERE I HAVE NO IDEA WHERE AND TELL ME STUPID THINGS LIKE I DID MAGIC! NOBODY, EVER, YELLS AT ME! NOBODY! GOT THAT BUDDY? YOU ARE A FREAK! WANT A SECOND OPINION? YOUR MENTAL TOO!" Hagrid was more than taken aback. She was probably the first to raise voice to him, ever. He didn't know what to do, what to say. He wasn't angry or insulted, he was actually impressed. "Lemme tell you something." He returned to his soft voice, or at least tried to. "Albus Dumbledore is the best wiz, I mean man to ever walk this planet. He's loyal and trustworthy and he has treated me like a son." A tear trickled down his beard. "No one will ever offend him and not get a lecture from me." He said all this without his ruddy accent. The girl was a bit taken, but she stood her ground. "How am I supposed to know, huh?" She stared at him. "I'm alone! Dammit! And I can't move! What would you do if you were in my position, huh?"

Hagrid realized how hard this must be for someone and softened up. "There's nothin for yeh here," he said slowly. "I have a reason why I'm hea and why yeh have to come wit me."

She looked tired. "Well, spit it out then," she said, she couldn't yell anymore. He looked around and bent down to where she was standing once more, he put his hand on her shoulder and practically whispered,

"Yeh're a witch."