Wishing on a Sticker by darkorangecat
Past Featured StorySummary: Harry makes a wish on a glow-in-the-dark star sticker that his teacher gave him on his last day of school before summer break.
Categories: Fic Fests > #18 Summer 2015, Parental Snape > Guardian Snape Main Characters: .Snape and Harry (required), Remus, Sirius
Snape Flavour: Snape Comforts, Snape is Kind, Snape is Loving
Genres: Family, Hurt/Comfort, Supernatural
Media Type: None
Tags: Adoption, Alternate Universe
Takes Place: 0 - Pre Hogwarts (before Harry is 11)
Warnings: Abusive Dursleys
Prompts: Wish upon a star
Challenges: Wish upon a star
Series: None
Chapters: 4 Completed: Yes Word count: 10749 Read: 25614 Published: 29 Jul 2015 Updated: 05 Aug 2015
Waking Only to Dream by darkorangecat
Author's Notes:
This is not slash (though you can read it that way if you wish); think of the TV show, "Full House".

 

"Do you think he hit his head, Severus?" asked someone Harry didn't recognize.


Harry decided to keep his eyes shut, just in case he had hit his head, and one of the neighbors had found him. His aunt and uncle would not be happy if he made a scene, or did something to get himself hurt. He really didn't want another punishment so early in the summer. If he was good, he might get to go play in the park when Dudley and his gang wasn't around, and after he got his chores done. If he earned another punishment now, though, he might not get to go to the park for several weeks.


"Oh for Merlin's sake, Remus, he just fell out of bed," said the voice belonging to Severus.


"But, he might have hit his head." Remus sounded worried, and Harry almost opened his eyes at the absurdity of someone worrying about him, and the thought that he had fallen out of bed. His mat wasn’t something that he could fall off of, it was almost flat against the floor. A niggling memory of falling tugged at Harry’s mind, and he tried to follow that thought to its beginning, but couldn’t.


"Stop fretting, and help me lift him up," Severus said in a voice that sounded a little like Harry’s uncle's did when he was irritated with Harry. "He's not as light as he used to be."


"He has grown a lot over the past couple of months." Remus' voice had lost the worried tone, and took on one of fondness that Harry found difficult to reconcile with regard to himself.


Harry felt himself lifted, and almost opened his eyes at the shock of it, because it wasn't done roughly, but gently. Instead, he bit his bottom lip, hoping that if he kept his eyes closed, it would prolong this dream. It had to be a dream, because nothing else made any sense.


"I'm surprised that Harry didn't wake when he fell." Remus' voice was right next to Harry's ear, and the man's warm breath tickled it. It was a strange feeling, one that Harry was unused to, but oddly, it wasn’t scary.


"I'm not," Severus said with a snort. "He sleeps like a rock."


"Yes, well, rock or not, I still think that we should examine his head --”


Severus snorted again, and Harry got the impression that the man was trying not to laugh.


Remus cleared his throat, and finished his thought, “To make sure that he doesn't have a lump on it.”


Harry nearly laughed aloud at the thought of his head being examined for a lump from falling out of a bed (as if he could fall off of his mat!), and not being whacked with the flat side of his aunt's cast iron skillet. This was a strange, funny dream, but Harry really didn't want it to end, so he stayed as still as he could when he felt himself being lowered onto a soft surface, and blankets being tucked under his chin, and then something, not unlike Mrs. Adams' hand, brushed over his forehead, except it stayed longer than Mrs. Adams' hand had, and felt different, softer somehow.


Harry couldn't help but smile and turn onto his side when he felt Severus' and Remus' hands move away from him. It felt so good, being in a real bed, everything, and more, than he thought it would be like whenever he made up his aunt and uncle's bed, and Dudley's. It was...heaven, Harry decided.


A hand ruffled his hair, and something brushed his cheek, and then Severus whispered, "Goodnight, Harry, try not to fall out of bed again, you don't want to send your Uncle Remus to an early grave with worry, or cause your Uncle Sirius to come rushing in here like a madman." Severus ruffled Harry’s hair again, and, comforted by the light, teasing tone of the stranger's words, though he had no idea who or what the man was talking about, and he vaguely thought that he should be a little more afraid than he was, Harry sighed softly and relaxed.


"This is a nice dream," Harry murmured. Unaware that he'd spoken the words aloud, causing both of his guardians to share a smile, Harry fell again, though this time it was into a sound sleep, and not into the special magic of his wish which had tumbled him into, not an alternative universe, but one which had been altered to fix several somethings that had gone wrong in the first place.


As Harry slept, a certain glow-in-the-dark sticker star was twinkling where he’d left it in the dark corner of the cupboard that he’d lived in at his aunt and uncle’s house. His aunt, uncle and cousin were struggling to open the door -- they’d heard what had sounded like a large explosion, and were intent upon investigating it, and making sure that Harry did not disturb any more of their nighttime television viewing with his freaky ways.


The door did not budge, though, and, growing bored, the Dursleys returned to the living room. Canned laughter jarred them from their contemplation of the cupboard beneath the stairs and of who was supposed to be there, and of the irritating fact that the door seemed to be stuck.


Before long, the Dursleys returned to their regularly scheduled programming, and all thoughts of Harry, of the boy and his cupboard, simply faded from their minds as they joined in on the canned laughter. The glow-in-the-dark sticker star seemed to breathe a sigh of relief (inasmuch as stickers can breathe) and then her light winked out, and Harry’s cupboard was plunged into darkness that not even the intermittent light from the television flickering in the living room could penetrate as a magic older than the star herself, older even than the magic that those who wield it are familiar with today, began to work.


It was intricate, and difficult work, and would take time, as it was a magic that had not been called upon in many decades. The magic needed to see, first, that the changes she was making were necessary, that she had not been called upon in vain.


Certain alterations had been easy to contrive -- the Dursleys were not particularly complex -- and others, a little harder to work out, but the magic had been able to alter timelines, and tweak certain events to bring about what Harry wanted, though the magic still needed to sort out the boy, himself.


Harry, unaware of the changes that were occurring, and of those which had already occurred, or of the magic that was beginning to work on his, and others’, behalf, in both the wizarding and muggle world, because of his wish, slept soundly and comfortably, for the first time since he’d lost his parents.


He dreamt about his teacher, about the star that glowed in its dark corner of his cupboard, of breath tickling his ear, and gentle, rumbling voices soothing him back to sleep after he’d fallen. It was a pleasant dream, and Harry’s arm curled around something soft and plush. Drawing it to his chest and hugging it there, Harry turned again in his sleep, sighing deeply in contentment.


The magic continued to do her work, weaving a new tapestry that would, affect, not only Harry’s present, but his future, as well as the pasts and futures of several key players. All of whom, aside from little Harry, had regrets, and had wistfully wished upon a star at least once in their lives, though, unlike Harry, they’d all failed to truly believe that their wish could come true.


She did not hold grudges -- that wasn’t the way of magic -- and though each of the individual’s wishes differed slightly, and she had to take creative license to fashion them together so that they fit into what Harry had asked for, it was not a complete breach of their intents, and, as such, it should work. There were just a few more things that she needed to put together before Harry’s wish, and indeed, those of the original wisher -- Chelsea Adams -- could be completely fulfilled.


The whispered, prayerful wish of a heartsick muggle (Please keep Harry safe and happy.) and an abused, yet wistful wizard child had sparked something that the old magic hadn’t felt in a very long time, and so, as Harry slept, she worked. 

The End.


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