We all live; we all die
That does not begin to justify you
It’s not what it seems; not what you think
No I must be dreaming
It’s only in my mind; not real life
No I must be dreaming
Chapter Three: Bitter Meetings
Harry felt his mouth drop open as he looked upon Sirius, sitting at a small kitchen table made of oak. The man smiled widely in the midst of laughter with a small teacup in his hand threatening to spill over as his body shook in mirth. On either side of him Harry glimpsed for the first time ever at his parents, both of whom, were chuckling right along with the happy man beside them. He looked at their faces much older than in the pictures in the album Hagrid had given him so many years before. Yet, as he turned back to Sirius he noticed how much younger he looked. Though the man’s hair was still long, the shadows underneath his eyes had dissipated and there were fewer lines of age framing his face.
Harry backed away from the sight, scared and confused by what he was seeing. They were dead, very dead, or at least they were supposed to be. He felt for the door handle behind him and once he made contact with the doorknob he turned it as fast as he could and ran out of the room, behind him he could no longer hear the laughter. He ran back up the staircase, down the hall, into the room he’d woken up in and slammed the door behind him. He turned around and quickly turned the lock and slid down to the floor gasping for breath. He closed his eyes for a moment trying desperately to figure this situation out.
None of this made any sense at all. Those people downstairs were dead. There was no other way to put it. Not only that, but he was supposed to be at Hogwarts spending the holiday with Ron and Hermione who were, no doubt, worried sick about him right now. He opened his eyes back up and tried to pick himself up from the carpeted floor. Once he had found his footing he stood up and looked around. As much as he had wanted it to be Sirius behind that door, now it almost seemed like he’d much rather it have been Malfoy, at least then he could explain what was going on. Harry rubbed his forehead in frustration and made his way over to the bed and sat down on it. For a long while he simply stared at the door in front of him not sure what to do.
Where was he? This was certainly the question worth a million Galleons. This was like an episode from the Twilight Zone he’d managed to sneak a glimpse at over the summer while he was stuck at the Dursley’s. He sighed deeply and began to look around the room for some clue as to what dimension he’d managed to slip through in the middle of the night. He turned over towards the desk, his desk, and noticed a little tag board hung on the wall just above it. Harry got up off of the bed and walked over to it and slowly inspected the images, which were hung wildly upon it. He stared at each of the pictures on display for a long while. All of them featured him with, either Ron or Hermione, Sirius, his parents, or some girl with long dark black hair that he’d never even seen before. He stared at her picture for a long time and could only determine that he was obviously very close to her.
His head began to throb from the immense thinking he had been putting it through and proceeded to walk back over to the bed and flopped down onto it, the image of the girl still on his mind. Who was she? He let out a frustrated grunt and decided bitterly that he didn’t care. At the moment, all he wanted to do was get back to school and talk with Hermione about this whole mess. She’d definitely know what to do. Even Ron would most likely find this tale amusing. Harry sighed deeply and sat up once again from his spot not entirely at ease with the thought of him making himself comfortable on “his” bed.
When he sat up he heard the click of his door opening and was just in time to see the mysterious girl from his photo. She clamored into his room dubbed in muggle clothing. He looked at her in shock; she couldn’t have been any older than eighteen. Yet, it was her appearance that stunned him. Her long locks fell into her eyes and he noticed that throughout it were streaks of red in random places. Her shirt was red and held a picture of “the pumpkin king” on it and clung nicely to her assets showing off her female shape. The pants she wore were baggy and black and had chains hanging off of it in odd locations. Her shoes were black converse and had little skull and crossbones printed on the rubber tops of the shoes. She walked over to him with a half smirk on her face and Harry didn’t even know what to say. “Who are you?” hardly seemed appropriate under the circumstances so he settled for “How did you get in here?”
The girl simply smiled and held out her hand, palm up. In it laid a small Knut. Harry stared at the item and felt his brow furrow in more confusion. He looked back up to her face only to see that it was also contorted in a mixture of boredom and perplexity. “I picked your bloody lock like I’ve done since I learned how to, when Sirius taught me before I went into school.” She stared at him and at the blank expression on his face she continued. “God, you can be so daft sometimes.”
Harry simply watched in awe as she walked over to his bed and sat down right next to him. She looked intently at the ceiling for a while and then spoke as if just to fill the uncomfortable silence they had slipped into. “So, my sad excuse for a father is downstairs and you took refuge in here. Nice, I never thought I’d see the day you ran from Sirius rather than too him.”
Harry turned to her and stared at her form as she fell backwards. “What?” He was now completely confused. Who was this girl and what was she going on about?
“Calling from the real world. Harry Potter, this is Reign Black, wake up.” She said sarcastically. She ran her hands through his hair and ruffled it making it stick up even worse than it typically did. She laughed at the affect it caused and then stood up from the bed. “I assume I should at least say ‘hi’ to him.” She said bitterly as she walked to the door. “He is my father.” With that young Reign left Harry’s room dropping the Knut just in front of the door. Harry stared at the little “gift,” still lost as to where he was or what exactly was going on.
He stood up from the bed and followed the trail the girl had made to the door and gently picked up the small piece of money. He then, holding the warm metal in his hand, walked back over to his desk and, as if knowing what to do with it, he opened a small ceramic box. The box was decorated with a hand-painted rendition of all of the characters from Nightmare Before Christmas and in the corner it was signed with “Happy Christmas to Harry from Reign Black” in a gold paint. He tenderly dropped the Knut on top of the collection that was already in there. After shutting the lid carefully he turned back around to look at the door that had been left slightly open and he wondered why exactly she had been so bitter about Sirius and her implications that both he and the man he was so found of were close.