Dumbledore appeared before me.

“Willow,” He said, “This is not a pensive as you know it. This is more like, a dream-like state. It lets you relive your memories, rather than watch your own memories. It probably doesn’t make much sense, but when you find yourself speaking, do not be alarmed, you’re only reliving something. You cannot alter anything, don’t even try…Be safe.”

The Dumbledore dissolved and I was sitting by a lake surrounded by weeping Willow trees.

“Stars shining bright above you, night breezes seem to whisper I love you-“George sang.

“Why are there so many songs? I’m sick of hearing music.” I groaned.

“How can you be sick of hearing music?” George said, picking up a small branch from the ground and twirling it through his fingers. “It’s so beautiful, simple and uncomplicated.”

“Oh god, why is everything so deep and meaningful?” I moaned. “Can’t I just have a normal dream?”

“Why would you want a normal dream?” said a familiar voice, but she didn’t have a familiar face.

She had shoulder length tomato coloured curls, with bright blue eyes, that were very prominent on her small face. Her skin was lightly tanned, her ruby red lips smiling in my direction.

“And who are you and why are you in my dream?” I asked, and her smile widened as she adjusted her fading black T-shirt.

“I’m Miss Craw, Miss Lucy Alice Craw. The voice in your head. This is what I look like.” She said, shaking her head slightly, so her curls bumped her in the face.

“Well, nice to meet you Lucy.”

“Good to meet you too Willow,” she said, and then her eyes fell to George. “Get out.” She ordered, and he disappeared.

“What did you do that for?” I said angrily.

“We need to talk, the things Dumbledore couldn’t know. I decided to casually come into your dreams to tell you.” Lucy said sulkily.

“Okay.” I said slowly.

“You’re probably going to tell this to Dumbledore anyway, but he couldn’t know until now.”

“Right.”

“I want you to know that what I said in that prophecy was all a lie.” Lucy told me. “The one with me in it.”

“Huh?”

“It was only put in place to stop you questioning things for a while.” I was informed.  “So, I’m not from a different world than yours, I’m from your world at a different point in time. Willow, I’m from your future, but here’s the kicker, in the future, you don’t exist.”

“What? I died?”

“No, you just don’t exist, there never was a Willow Potter. Tree. Thing. You.”

"How do I not exist?" I asked, pinching myself to reaffirm that I do, indeed, exist.

"Harry existed, and Ron, Hermione too. But you... You just didn't exist."

"Wait. What do you mean 'Harry existed' huh? Doesn't he exist?"

"He died in the war that hasn't yet started..."

"Died? No. He can't..."

"The future isn't good, I was born in the ‘age of fire’ as you-know-who calls it. He just kills people. Join him or be killed. Be killed if you join him..."

"Then...how do I fit into this?" I asked selfishly.

On the contrary, Lucy smiled.

"You're our little miracle."

"Sorry?"

“You were created Willow; created from the Resurrection Stone. You were created for purpose of saving the world. You give life. You create life. You are destined to give up your own life and bring everyone back. Even people's sanity. Everything comes back Willow, and it's all up to you."

“What?” I said, dumbfounded.

“You need to go on your merry way and die, and then everyone else comes back to life! Simple!” she snapped.

"But what if I don't want to?" I whispered.

"Why shouldn't you? You have nothing holding you back."

"What about George, he's real, isn't he?" I shouted.

"George Weasley is real, but he…he was supposed to protect you. He keeps you alive by being there for you."

"He doesn't love me then?" I said, my voice finding it difficult to form the words. 

"How could he love something that's not meant to exist? You don't actually exist."

"But..."

"This makes it easier for you. You just keep safe until you've got to go off to the forest and die."

“You’re so full of crap!”

“Oh, shut it.” Lucy snapped. “You’re so melodramatic for a non-existent person.”

“So, you created me to live for sixteen years, and then die?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you just make someone exist for like a minute and then die?”

Lucy was silent for a moment, as though she was choosing the correct words.

“It’s the sentiment, Willow. Sentiment is what is required for everything to work. Sentiment is the key to life. Don’t you see? Without emotions, we are all destined to be like Lord Voldemort. Which is why, to contradict all of his devastation, you need to feel. It’s the emotion. It’s the sacrifice. That’s how it works.”

 “You created me to die?” I asked, my voice shaking.

“We created you to allow life.”

“What happens to me?”

“When you die? It will be as though you never existed. Nature will right itself again.” Lucy said. “To create a new world, where the future is different.”

“But...What about my friends what about –“

“They won’t remember you. You won’t have existed. You won’t go to heaven, or to hell or to anywhere else. You’ll just stop.”

“But...I don’t want...to die.” I whispered.

“Neither do I Willow. We all make our sacrifices.” She looked away as she spoke.

“What, you die too?”

“Well, yeah...I was born after the Battle at Hogwarts – spoiler alert.” She added with a sigh. “The day after, actually.”

“But, umm, your parent’s could still get back together, couldn’t they?” I asked hopefully.

“Well, considering my dad is Voldemort and Bellatrix is my mum, not really.” She said, trying to sound nonchalant.

“Oh, fuck,” I blurted. “Did not expect that.”

“Well, no one really does...” she said bitterly, turning her back on me. “Willow, you have to do this. For all of our sakes.”

I sat down on the ground, silent as ever. Some time passed, but I didn’t know how much of it.

“Hey, you know how you came into my mind that day?”

“Umm, yeah.” I replied softly.

“Well, that was the day I was first meeting my sisters...”

“Wait all Voldemort’s-?”

“Yeah, he’s sort of a slut.”

“Oh,” I said slowly. “Wait, wasn’t that in, like, New Zealand?”

“Yes. He spread out all around the world. He’s destroyed everything. There aren’t any Muggles left. The rebellion was squashed flat. The world was on fire. Everyone was screaming but there was no escape.” She said, her eyes seemed to reflect the fire she spoke of. “I found the rest of his children, my siblings. We went around together and we found out how powerful we were. We tried to stop him, but we lost almost everyone. That’s when I found out about Jade, Deb and Eve.” Lucy paused a moment and gulped. ”That explosion you saw when I met Eve, that was our power going all fucking weird. We had to refine it all. We made spells to go back in time, like how I sent back the fake prophecy. Our actual selves couldn’t go back, because that would be a paradox. So we sent you.”

She looked at me dead in the face and smiled, before settling herself down on the ground too.  “We travelled back to Hogwarts. Deborah, Jade, Eve and myself. We’d heard that Voldemort had waited in the forest during the Battle, so we thought we’d investigate. It was Eve who found the stone. The Resurrection Stone. She said she saw her mother. Each of us saw our dead family; our dead friends. So we got a cool idea, and each of us placed a finger on it. That’s when it started to glow. And, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea what the fuck happened.” She laughed while thinking about it. “It was as though the stone had told us something. It was like – you know – we all had the same dream. It was like that, except, this time, we all knew how to create a person and send them back through time. It was complicated, and I won’t tell you how because the method will always disgust Me.” she took a deep breath. “The point of what I’m saying is – we made you. We sent you back.

“And you’re a difficult one Willow. Seriously, you are the most difficult person I have ever encountered. We invented you as a ten year old, tortured, a terrible life, and we planted fake memories around and threw you into the fray. We can see your future, and the consequences of every decision you have ever made – before you’ve made it. We can pick a future we like best and push you down that road.”

“You’ve been controlling me?” I interrupted.

“We’ve been…altering your path.”

“That’s a fancy way of saying you’ve been controlling me. You’ve changed fate! And people still died!”

“People will always die, Willow.” Lucy said seriously. “But not all the time.”

I was silent for a minute.

“What the fuck did you just say?”

 “Just shut up and let me tell you a thing.” She snapped. “So, we had to keep like, bring you back to life, and stop you from dying, which sucked. So thanks for getting into shit situations.”

“It was kind of cool though. I’m immortal.” I grinned in spite of myself.

“No. You’re not. Every time you’d die Willow, we’d bring you back by killing someone else. You lived in the past, someone died in the future.”

“What?” I said, as my smile turned into a grimace.

“That’s reality Willow. No one is immortal. No one can cheat death with their soul intact.”

“Why didn’t you pick different paths then? If you could change it all?” I said desperately. “Huh? Why didn’t you choose a path where I didn’t die?”

“Two reasons – both of which involve the fact that you suck.” She gave me a very bitchy look. “One: Your stubborn arse wouldn’t change even if we tried.”

“Sorry.”

“And two:” Lucy went on. “A lot of the time, every path led to you dying. You weren’t part of reality you were a miscalculation; you weren’t supposed to be. And yet you were, because we made you so. And hence, death followed you. Reality was trying to kill you off.” Lucy was unable to make eye contact with me. She had been avoiding it since she’d started to speak. “There were many things that were also not meant to be – regarding your existence. You were not supposed to be a Potter. There was never meant to be another Potter. Yet it was so. We didn’t plan on that. It was as big of a shock to us as it was to you.

“You could imagine our surprise when our own creature, made from fake memories and dust, started to create her own memories; started to become so powerful - You could apparate, and we hadn’t counted on that. You were stronger than the rest of the witches and wizards, and we didn’t plan that either. Your conscious mind believed it was real and every time there was a continuity error, made by our failures, your mind tried so desperately to belong that it invented a history for itself. Your mind saw the gaps in the reality we gave to you, and it tried to make sense by making you the other Potter.”

“Wait, so I was subconsciously so angry with being a Malfoy, that I turned myself into a Potter?” I asked.

“More or less.” Lucy smiled, now looking at me.

“What about how I looked like Lily Potter? That was before I made myself a Potter. What about how Voldemort thought Harry and I were siblings? That was all before my third year, where I – well – where I ‘found out’ I was a potter.”

“Your subconscious had already started forming these memories since your creation. You were, well, a blob, but a blob that felt purpose, and so you created yourself in the image you needed. And because you weren’t part of reality, you bended it. You could not only alter your own memory, but you altered others. You are so unusual, and forever interesting.”

“What the fuck.”

“Okay, to try to put it as simply as I can, you started out a ten-year-old Malfoy with a horrible childhood, but as you aged, you subconsciously bended reality to make, not only you feel better, but to make others feel better.”

“Wait – so I’m sort of a subconscious humanitarian?”

“Basically.”

“So – my weird convoluted past aside – everyone will die, present and future, if I don’t do this? If I don’t…” I gulped. “Sacrifice myself?”

“Correct.”

“Then how do I do it?”

“You need Voldemort to kill you, and you need to be holding the stone.”

“But you said it was lost in the forest.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Lucy smiled. “Shame.”

The memory dissolved, and finally everything made sense. Inside the box, were the memories saying I had to die, memories saying Snape was a good guy, memories telling me to find Ruby, and to look after Hogwarts students. I never expected this though.

I never expected that I was a clever blob of nothingness.

A new memory appeared, and I was lying in a cot. Dumbledore was standing over me, and apparently it was his memory.

“She’s beautiful, Lily.” Dumbledore said.

“It’s so strange though…I never even knew I was pregnant, until she was born, that is.”

“That should be a TV show,” James remarked. “’I didn’t know I was pregnant.’”

“You can expect great things from Willow…I can just tell.”

It dissolved and reformed again, this time I was being walked through Diagon Alley in the Arms of Lily Potter – my sort-of mother. She paused to look at something, and I saw Snape – apparently it was his memory – I heard him speaking.

“You always wanted a daughter, didn’t you Lily. Ever since we were kids. I’m happy that you’re happy. That’s all I ever want for you. James’ lovely Lily.” Snape was speaking to himself, but I could hear it for whatever reason.

Finally it dissolved back into Dumbledore’s office. He was sitting across from me at his desk, his face full of confusion, concern and grief.

“This is really fucked up.” I said flatly. I assumed this version of me, was the version that had first seen these memories.

“I concur wholeheartedly.” He nodded.

We sat in silence staring at his desk.

“What? What did you see?” Snape was behind me and I fell out of the chair.

“I forgot you were there!” I said from the floor, clutching my heart.

He reached out his hand to help me up, but I remained on the floor.

“I have fallen and I cannot get up.”

“Come on Willow,” Snape offered his hand. “It’s not like you’re dying.”

I started laughing hysterically.

“On the contrary, Severus.” Dumbledore said pointedly.

“No.” Snape gasped. “What?”

“Good luck explaining that.” I laughed, rolling along the floor.

“One circumstance has left to another, and Willow will have to sacrifice herself to Voldemort to save the world.”

“YOU MISSED OUT THE PART WHERE I DON’T EXIST!”

“What?” Snape looked alarmed.

“Uh, well, Willow was a blob of nothingness that became a blob of somethingness.” Dumbledore tried to explain and looked constipated and it was the first time he’d ever sounded challenged.

“I AM A HUMANITARIAN!” I shouted, tears streaming down my face.

“We’ll skip the details,” Dumbledore decided. “Willow is made from the resurrection stone and when she sacrifices herself to Voldemort, the sentiment of it will restart life.”

“What?” Snape said, collapsing into a seat.

“I dunno man. It’s fucked up.”  I said. “I am a blob and blobs die for everyone.”

“This is ridiculous.” Snape said. “What is with the Potter’s and sacrificing themselves for others?”

“It’s a family trait.” Dumbledore nodded.

“I’M NOT EVEN FAMILY WHAT THE FUCK!”

“No, but you are.” Dumbledore said.

“What?” Snape said.

“Fuck, I’m in-fucking-sane.” I said quietly. “I can’t live until then if I know.”

“What do you need?”

“I need to you take the memories and then wipe my mind. Let me be confused, I don’t care. I can’t know this until I have to.”

Dumbledore nodded.

I was thrown back into reality.

“Fuck.” I said aloud. “I didn’t expect that. Like. Fuck.”

“What’s wrong?” Harry asked, he looked upset.

“Oh, you know…Death.” I smiled.

“Ah,” he smiled back glumly. “Know the feel.”

“You’re off to the forest, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,”

“I’m going with you.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“Why aren’t you arguing?”

“I’m trying not to cry.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I love you Willow.”

“I love you Harry.”

“I hope you live a long, wonderful life. Kill the snake.”

“Don’t worry about me, Hazza.” I shrugged. “I’ll be good. You know me, I always am.”

He kissed me on the cheek and left.