A World Without

Lestrange left soon after his failed attempt, he had his fifth year DADA class to teach and a few Head of House problems to get taken care of with his Slytherins.

"So why are you here?" James ran a tired hand over his face before looking to the silent boy on the hospital bed.

"Do you need money? Papers? I can probably get you as far as the Americas, but the Dark Lord will soon rule there too." Oh god, what was going on, this can't be real, this has to be a dream, just a dream. I just have to play along with the dream, I'll wake up soon.

"Why would I go there?" The calming potion was quickly wearing off, he didn't want to hear this.

"Have you been living under a rock? All of Europe and most of Asia have been taken over and are under the rule of the Dark Lord. All the Mug....Mudbloods in Europe have been killed or sterilized, most of the half-bloods as well. The ones that have survived are used worse than houselves and any magical children born to muggles 'mysteriously' die in their sleep." His voice was sad, remorseful, but Harry barely heard his tones, in the real world over half of Gryffindor had at least some muggle blood, were they all dead? Was Hermione dead? Seamus, Dean, Colin, Dennis, were they all killed in their sleep?

"How do they find them?"

"Hogwarts register, everyone that is born with magic shows up on the rolls as soon as they perform any accidental magic." They would be able to find everyone in England that way, but maybe others had escaped. Harry didn't want to think about what his father had to be to survive in a world run by Voldemort.

"Do you serve him?" James' hand rubbed his left forearm absentmindedly, and he spoke without emotion.

"Everyone serves. You defy him, you die." Harry felt sick, his father was a deatheater.

"No one fights back? You just let all those people be killed, all those children!" A hand slapped over his mouth, a face so like his own bent close to his ear.

"Keep your voice down, if someone heard you.... we tried, we failed, and this is the world now. Lestrange is my friend; he won't say anything to the Dark Lord about you unless someone else does. He is already going to head off that Weasley boy and oblivate him, so we need to get you out of this country. Unless you want to be sterilized and put in chains." Lestrange was his friend? Harry sighed, this defiantly wasn't real, there was no way that it could be, in a few minutes he would wake in his bed in Gryffindor tower, and this would all be a bad dream. Dumbledore would be alive and Snape would still be a greasy potions master/spy for the light. It’s all just a bad dream.

"Sterilized?" He mumbled past his father's hand, playing along makes dreams go faster...maybe he should go jump off the astronomy tower, you always almost always wake up before you die in dreams.

"They make it so you can't have children." That makes sense, wouldn’t want any accidents, wouldn't want any more innocent children to have to kill.

"Do you have any children?"

"Aside you, no." If Harry was never born, then he wasn't The-Boy-Who-Lived, and Voldemort should have gone after Neville instead, but what else had changed.

"Married?" Was his mum dead as well....dream, all a dream. Of course his mum was dead in his reality anyway and so was his father.....even though he is talking to him right now.

"No." Nothing would have stopped his real dad from being with his mum, he had been after her for years at Hogwarts, she is probably dead.

"Why not?"

"Never found anyone that I wanted to share my life with, well, at least no one that wasn't off limits." He looked angry, she's probably dead. "So, tell me about yourself."

"Not much to tell."

"Hmm, how about we start with your family. You’re a horrible liar by the way; you didn't grow up in an orphanage." That earned James a slight glare and pout.

"Lestrange believed me, so I guess I can't be that bad." His words were grumbled and caused James to laugh, Harry could get used to that laugh.

"No, he didn't believe you, but that gives us some plausible deniability."

"I don't feel like talking about my family." Relive his memories of the Dursley's with his dream father, yeah right.

"Alright, how did you find out about me being your father then?" He could tell James was getting frustrated with him

"I didn't know about you."

"Then why are you here?" Harry looked down at his hands curled in his lap and for a brief moment, he saw a band of flame flare around his wrist.

"The Vow." Harry’s voice was barely a whisper, but James heard it.

"Vow, what vow?"

"Where is Snape, I have to talk to him!" James went pale at the mention of the name; his voice was quiet, face riddled with guilt.

"Snape? Severus Snape? How do you know that name?"

"Where is he?" What had he done, he couldn't have changed everything with an Unbreakable Vow.

"Snape is dead; he died before you were even born." Another flare in Harry’s vision, the third binding of Harry's Vow was wrapped around James' wrist.

"How?" His question wasn’t towards his father, but he answered anyway.

"He was killed by a werewolf in our sixth year."