Parallels

It had been an Indian summer; a summer so hot that it seemed that all of the water in the air had been sucked dry and all that was left was the blistering heat. No winds came to cool the perspiration that now coated everyone's skin. The days thundered on, water seeming to be a precious gemstone. It was the hottest summer anyone had seen in ages, perhaps the hottest summer to hit Europe in centuries. Even the most gentle of people had been driven to irritation by the sheer lack of comfort that seemed to arrive hand in hand with the heat. But for those people who were not so gentle, this proved to be the worst summer yet. The Dursleys of Number Four, Privet Drive, were downright awful. They expected the air conditioner in the house to be placed at the precise temperature, ice always stocked in the freezer, windows clamped tightly shut, and more importantly, they expected their nephew to find this summer to be unbearable.

The seventeen year old, raven-haired boy's room was the only room in the house that did not get the full effects of the air conditioner. He had tried to open the previously barred window of his room, only to find a long lecture from his aunt and uncle about how he should be happy with the small amount of cool air that crept into his room, from the air conditioner that seemed to be permanently poised to follow the three of them around. The stifling grip of the air floating around the mass of Europe seemed to grip Harry Potter tightly, making life at the Dursleys worse than ever before. His only cure for the heat seemed to be some comforting words from his friends. After the previous two years he had grown untrusting of most people, especially anyone who held secrets from him. He had passed the stage of hating himself for what had happened to his godfather, Sirius Black. He had now reached the point where he blamed his godfather for not letting him know about the two-way mirror sooner. He was over blaming himself for the loss of fellow Triwizard Tournament contestant, Cedric Diggory, now he blamed Lord Voldemort with a strong vengeance. His best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, however, seemed to take away the heat of the summer and the sting of his losses and make him focus on what was important in the moment. They reminded him that he didn't need to save the world every moment of the day. But that didn't stop the silent arguments with his conscience of ways that he could have done things differently or ways that he could stop something in the future. Harry Potter was a hero first, and a teenager last.

Even as the summer dwindled down, the heat remained. As temperatures rose so did the heated arguments in the quaint household. Everything the raven-haired boy did was wrong. The eggs were too cold, the house too messy, the table too full, and everything the Dursleys tried to correct was answered with a loud and clear 'Sod off.' They bristled at the language saying that 'That bloody school of his was corrupting what they worked so bloody hard to achieve.' to which he would roll his eyes. Everything was always the fault of 'that bloody school', or simply the boy's own fault. It was bad enough that he kept reminding himself of that but when the three people in all of Surrey that he couldn't stand pounded it into his brain it became even worse. He took to finding peace and quiet away from the Dursleys, even if that meant sacrificing the cool breeze contained in the portions of the house that the three remained in nearly all of their time now that temperatures had passed the point of scalding. Locking himself in his sauna-like room he took to writing many letters. Letters to Hermione, Remus and Ron, letters to Ginny, Luna and Neville and even letters to his Mum, Dad and Sirius. The first six letters were sent away by owl and kept a near daily correspondence with the people to whom the letters were addressed. The last three sets of letters were locked beneath the loose floorboards at the corner of his bed. They were letters of fears, desperation and despair. Unlike the letters which he sent to his friends which were light and cheery. It was this duality that allowed Harry Potter to gain some sort of semblance to a real life, a life where he didn't have to worry about the fates of hundreds of millions of people if he made one little screw up. His façade was so well performed that even his best friends didn't notice the troubles masked behind his emerald green eyes.

He called it his depression. His down-fall, his weak spot. It was the one thing that he knew he could no longer tell himself that didn't exist. At one point everything had to build up into unstable amounts that he could no longer keep inside. But he was stronger than to just let the gates open up to that point where he wore everything on his sleeve. He couldn't afford to do that, the last time he had let his emotions get in the way it cost him the life of the only father figure he had ever known. The good no longer outweighed the bad, no matter how much he tried to make it amount to. His parents had died for him. He brought down the fall of Voldemort. He nearly died at eleven years old. He defeated Voldemort once again. At twelve his life was nearly taken once again, but this time by a basilisk. He had saved Ginny Weasley. He had let Wormtail escape. He met Remus and Sirius, forever changing his life and bringing him one step closer to his Mum and Dad. At fourteen he escaped the clutches of death once more, watched a fellow Triwizard tournament contestant die, watched Voldemort come back into power with use of his own blood and this time there was nothing good that came with it. Sirius died, it was Harry's fault, he was almost expelled, Sirius died, it was his fault. Nothing Ron and Hermione could ever say could erase those feelings from him and no façade he ever put up could ever wipe it out of his memory. Though his sixth year in Hogwarts went by nearly uneventful he couldn't help but hate every moment of it. Every glance of a passerby was a look of sympathy. That's what he hated, he hated Dumbledore's announcement marking him as a hero. He hated that everyone knew about Sirius' death. He hated that he had shed uncountable tears.

He had said it a thousand times and ever time he was no closer to believing himself than the time before. He had told himself that it wasn't his fault. Cedric, Sirius, his Mum and Dad, they weren't his fault. They all fell at the hands of Lord Voldemort, but every time he said that it was followed with a mental "Because of me." But just like everything else, Harry kept those feelings locked inside as well.

The heat bubbled on and the young man felt a thin layer of perspiration building on his skin. Sighing heavily he tugged on the t-shirt that was now clinging to his sweat covered body. He could feel his wire-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose, pulling them off he wiped at the sides of his nose with the back of his hand. His beautiful snow-white owl Hedwig flew through the window at a lazy pace dropping a letter in front of him. It was the shortest letter he had ever received from Hermione.

Harry,

Found a way to help you. Friday. Noon. The Leaky Cauldron.

Hermione

A way to help him? Help him with what? It was that first sentence that bothered the young man the most as he read over the message. Whatever the girl had concocted he knew it was going to be bad. But just as he set the letter down an owl he had never seen before flew through the open window. It was a large brown tawny owl with a small sliver of parchment tied around its leg. With a slightly shaky hand, Harry untied the parchment and unrolled it slowly. It was brief and unsigned.

Seven parallels.

Setting the parchment down on his desk, he leaned back in the small wooden chair and stared at the two notes he had received. None of it made sense, but he suddenly knew that whatever these two notes had in common, if anything, it was more important that wallowing in his own self pity.

He had passed the stage of hating himself for what had happened to his godfather, Sirius Black. He was over blaming himself for the loss of fellow Triwizard Tournament contestant, Cedric Diggory. But the thoughts that he was in some way responsible never seemed to leave Harry Potter's nightmares. However, as Hermione Granger found herself digging deeper into her beloved books, she found the one thing that could possibly save the seventeen year old boy from hiding behind his mask of falsified happiness. The only problem is, they soon realize they must fulfill a prophesy they never saw coming.