A few minutes later, blue light flared in the fireplace.
Mr.
Potter stumbled out, clothes streaked with soot.
“James!” Mrs.
Potter grabbed him like a lifeline.
“Look at Harry.
Is he disappearing?” Mr.
Potter didn’t stop to clean himself.
He rushed straight to the bed.
Harry’s sleeping body rippled like ink spreading across wet paper, then snapped back solid.
Mr.
Potter took a deep breath and reached out.
His hand passed straight through Harry’s chest.
The body wavered like a reflection on water, but the blanket stayed real and the mattress still showed the exact dent of Harry’s weight.
“How long has he been like this?” Mr.
Potter asked.
“Since he fell asleep,” Mrs.
Potter said, voice cracking.
“Don’t worry.
This is exactly what we planned for.” Mr.
Potter pulled her into his arms.
“That’s why we gave him the ring early—so he’d be ready.
He’s still here.
Go rest.
Tomorrow morning you’ll hear him say good morning like nothing happened.” …
Harry opened his eyes and stared at the dusty ceiling for a long time.
Spiderwebs in the corners.
Grime everywhere.
This ceiling didn’t belong in Potter Manor.
Even the cheapest servant room there was spotless.
The letter was gone.
Harry sat up, shoved his glasses on, and took in the room stuffed with Dudley’s broken toys.
He was back in the spare bedroom.
So it had all been a dream?
Sunlight cut through the tiny window.
Aunt Petunia’s voice drifted up from the kitchen downstairs.
Any second now she’d come banging on the door in that shrill voice, ordering him to get up and start working.
The perfect life as Young Master Potter had been nothing but a weird dream after all… Harry muttered to himself and climbed out of bed.
He didn’t feel like fighting Uncle Vernon for the bathroom.
Then he noticed something wrong.
“This shirt…” He looked down.
The clothes he’d slept in still looked freshly pressed, like they’d just come off the iron.
Morning light caught the dust in the air.
Tiny specks drifted toward the fabric—then slid right off, like they couldn’t touch it.
Harry Potter at the Dursleys never owned clothes like this.
Only Harry Potter at Potter Manor did.
“That wasn’t a dream?
I really saw Mom and Dad… in another world… The ring!” Harry shoved his sleeve up.
The black ring sat quiet and solid on his wrist.
It was still there.
While he was staring at it, the bedroom door exploded open.
Uncle Vernon—hair wild, face puffy—charged in like an angry bear.
“Boy!
Time to get up!” His voice shook the walls.
From the next room came Dudley’s furious roar.
“Shut up!
You’re waking me up!” Something smashed.
Dudley throwing another fit.
Great.
This room was about to get more secondhand decorations.
Vernon actually shut his mouth when his son yelled at him.
Then his thick lips fell open in shock.
“Boy!” he hissed, voice shaking.
“Where the hell did those clothes come from?” He couldn’t believe it.
The kid never had new clothes—only Dudley’s hand-me-downs.
Dudley grew out of everything so fast that last year’s shirts were this year’s tents, and they still fit Harry for three years.
But this outfit looked expensive as hell.
Gold thread on the cuffs.
Vernon was pretty sure the whole thing cost more than their house.
“My parents gave them to me,” Harry said without thinking.
The second the words left his mouth, he realized how it sounded.
Vernon’s fat face went bone-white.
Old memories slammed into him—surrounded by freaks, that creepy feeling he hated.
Fear twisted it into pure terror.
The kid just said his dead parents gave him the clothes?
Dead people don’t send gifts!
Vernon knew nobody in this house—or anyone Harry knew—could afford something like this.
And remembering the Potters were wizards… His face cycled through every ugly color—green, purple, red.
“Petunia!
Petunia!” he screamed like a stuck pig.
Down in the kitchen, Aunt Petunia yelped and flung a pot of stewed beans across the counter.
“What?
What’s wrong?” She wiped her hands and bolted upstairs, feet pounding on the wooden steps.
“Shut up!” Dudley kicked his door open and hurled a pile of junk at his father—including his brand-new birthday cane.
Stuff rained down on Vernon and Petunia.
Dudley roared.
Vernon screamed.
Petunia tried to calm everyone.
The second-floor hallway turned into pure chaos.
Harry stood in the doorway, watching the Dursleys make complete fools of themselves, and laughed out loud.
Dudley’s head snapped toward him.
“You think this is funny?” He charged like a wrecking ball, surprisingly fast for his size.
Harry stepped back on instinct.
He knew that weight advantage too well—Dudley loved crushing people with it.
But Dudley was already on him, inches away from slamming him to the floor.
The ring on Harry’s wrist flared.
A hard blue barrier snapped into place between them.
Dudley smacked into it with a loud thud.