Harry looked up at Parcae. He’d seen enough. He took a deep breath.

“Do it.”

“Goodbye Harry, we will speak again one day. Good luck.”

She disappeared, and Harry felt giddy for a moment….

Harry and Draco, in their seventh year, were walking down the path from school to Hogsmeade to meet Sirius for lunch before checking out new brooms. Draco was repeating a story he'd heard about a second year exploding a cauldron right in Slughorn's face. They saw the Animagus up ahead.

Harry stopped dead in his tracks. There it was again, that feeling. In a second, his vision would go funny, and he would see -

They were in a great stone amphitheatre, he was in pain, terrified, breathing heavily and had his wand out. He saw Longbottom to the side, who was holding his nose, blood streaming from it. He saw Sirius duelling with a Death Eater, then his godfather was forced backwards through an archway, disappearing from sight. The Death Eater laughed manically.

He shook his head, dispelling the vision from his eyes. Draco was calling his name.

“Hello?! Do I need to Enervate you?”

Harry looked across to where Sirius was waiting for them. His godfather was there, right there. So, what was that feeling, the vision? Why was he always seeing dreadful things? They didn't exactly feel like warnings, more like…he felt like he was watching history. Detached, even though he was part of them.

He stopped and sat down abruptly in the middle of the path, drawing a surprised “Harry?” from Draco. Sirius had seen them and approached quickly.

“What happened, Draco?” he asked.

“Another dizzy spell.”

“Harry?” he knelt by his godson.

Harry put a hand on his godfather's arm, to let him know he was all right, and keep him quiet. He ran back through the episodes in his mind.

Ever since he could remember, he'd seen these things. When he'd received his Hogwarts letter, he’d got a vision of a hundred of them raining down on him, a big angry man lunging towards him, a rickety cottage on some rocks in the middle of a stormy sea, and strangely, the Hogwarts gamekeeper, Hagrid.

Sometimes when he was laughing or playing with Draco, he'd get a disturbing flash of the boy hexing him with a murderous expression, or himself holding his wand on the blond.

As a child, the visions had really frightened him. A boy twice his size would be chasing him, or a thin, pinched woman was screeching at him and hitting him with a wooden spoon. He never knew who they were.

His father would be instructing him in potions, and all of a sudden he was in a classroom full of students laughing and his father was sneering at him, saying the most horrible things.

Sometimes on his birthday it would be dark, like the inside of a small room, judging by the cramped feeling, and the only thing to see would be small vertical slits of light bleeding in from somewhere else.

At Christmas, he might see a similar pile of presents under a similar tree, but none of them were his, and the fat boy was screaming at him.

The day he met Ginny Weasley, on the train at the beginning of second year, he’d seen a flash of her lying cold and sick-looking in a vast dank room, and a creepy boy standing over her, smiling in malice.

When Granger had suggested starting the Defence Club to relieve the boredom of schoolwork he could do in his sleep, he’d had a vision of a very ugly, toad-like woman glaring at him as he scratched his quill on the paper, pain exploding in his hand.

The day he'd beaten Diggory to the snitch, he’d seen the seeker being killed in front of him.

And now he'd seen something happen to Sirius, something he knew was bad.

What did they all mean? None of them were ever true or became true, though they all were somehow connected to what was happening at the time. He was only thankful that they were nothing like reality.

He felt dizzy again, his vision spun and Sirius’ voice sounded too far away.

He blinked. This room was familiar, but he couldn't place it. It was fairly non-descript, it could have been inside Hogwarts, but he wasn't sure.

A girl walked in and sat opposite him.

“Have you figured it out yet, Harry?”

In a split second, he felt everything land inside him, like all the pieces had been floating around, but he'd been unable to look at more than one at a time. He had the memories of two lives, like he'd lived twice.

He remembered being Harry Potter, he remembered the Dursleys, Sirius, Snape, Dumbledore. Then he felt it. He felt being Harry Potter, he felt the despair, the loneliness, the injustice, the weight of the prophecy, the guilt ...

Then he remembered her. Parcae.

She had said….that they'd made a mistake?

Oh. He sighed with relief. That wasn't him. He was Harry Snape. His father loved him. His friends were protected. Sirius was alive.

She was still there, sitting quietly when he opened his eyes. “Do you forgive us for our mistake, Harry?”

“Yes,” he said, looking at her and seeing the worry in her eyes. This could have gone very badly, for the whole world.

And his life could have been hell.

With very sincere gratitude, he added, “Thank you.”

“Thank you, Harry. Good luck.”

He woke, his mind clear. Sirius was still standing over him, and Draco was pacing nearby, agitated.

“Don’t move, Harry, we’ll take you to Madam Pomfrey.”

“No, it’s okay,” he said, sitting up. He looked at his godfather, really looked at him. What was the difference, niggling at the back of his mind?

The man looked happy, despite his concern. There were no more lines on his face than there should have been, and his eyes sparkled. He looked at Draco. The boy was worried for him. There was no sneer, no dark glare of loathing. Suddenly, Harry flung his arms around Sirius and burst into tears.

“Um, Harry?” Shocked, Sirius looked at Draco, who was equally surprised.

“It doesn’t usually make him upset,” the blond said quietly.

“Hey,” Sirius said softly, rubbing his back. “What’s the matter? What’s got my little Angel Boy so upset?”

Harry sniffed and his arms tightened. “I’m just so glad you’re here,” he whispered.

“Of course I’m here, Stripes,” he said, still confused. “I always meet you on Saturdays.”

Harry pulled out of the embrace, grinning like a loon, tears pouring down his face. “Never mind,” he said. He scrubbed his eyes with his sleeve and stood.

Turning to Draco, he said “Let’s go. First round’s on me.”

As the three started back down the path to Hogsmeade, he thought, Life doesn’t get much better than this.