Dear Dream Journal

disclaimer: Nothing I write is monetized. I lay no claim to anyone's intellectual property, especially not JKR's. By this point we should all be big boy's and girl's and know that. Therefore, I plan to not include a disclaimer with every chapter. If in doubt, refer to this disclaimer.

LONG AN (feel free to skip): I have many story ideas for the HP universe, but sadly I will never live long enough to flesh them out into full stories. My ideas usually come to me as a scene, which after thinking about it a bit, develops into a skeletal structure for a story. Sometimes it is even less. My 'A Very Different Harry Potter' story developed from an author using "Merlin's hairy balls" as an epithet. I thought of that and wondered, what if that had more meaning. What if there was a spell that generated ball shaped lights, or effects, or something. Eventually I came up with the scene of Harry meeting Merlin's portrait and the two shared the same hobby, juggling. From there, everything else was born. The story was not originally about politics, pre-teen marriage, friendly Draco, or any of the other things that have seeped into the story.

I have decided to start sharing some of these unrealized stories as entries in a Dream Journal Harry keeps. That way I can write them, share them, and hopefully some of you will enjoy them.
For obvious reasons, most will be quite short.

PS. Thought this was an original title, but decided to google to make sure… Original? Not even close! I don't see anyone else using it the way I plan to. And I have not read any of those stories, to make sure I don't plagiarize, even accidentally. So much has been written about HP, I have decided original ideas are hard to find.
Regardless, Enjoy!

==================================DDJ=========================================

Dear Dream Journal,

Entry 1:

This feels stupid. Madame Pomfrey told me to start a dream journal to help me deal with some of my dreams. They are usually nightmares. After all, who needs 'help' dealing with good dreams? When I told her that, she said I needed to write all my dreams down, good or bad.

"Similar themes can point to problems in your life that can be addressed", she said.

I could tell her the 'themes that need to be addressed', starting with the Dursleys. But no one wants to hear that.

So, here goes.

PS Dear Dream Journal, if you start writing back to me like a certain diary we will not mention, I will destroy you immediately. I will burn you to ash, separate the ashes into a dozen piles and mail them to the most distant parts of the globe. I will enclose a letter which states these are the ashes of my father and he wanted them scattered in the rivers of the country where his soul felt most at peace.
So, on the off chance you are sentient, don't ever let anyone know. If word gets back to me, you will be learning to swim, postmortem.

So, with the warnings out of the way, here goes.

Last night I had a dream. I think it would have become a nightmare, but I woke up before it got all life and death-y.

Here is what I remember. (still feels stupid talking to a piece of paper)

Dear Dream Journal,

Last night I had a really weird dream: then again, most of mine are, as you will soon learn.

I was sitting in the Great Hall with everyone else. There were many students there I did not recognize. Some looked brutish and wore heavy furs. Others wore light blue uniforms. Those in fur were uniformly male, while those in blue were all female… and beautiful… especially one.

(I wonder what deeper meaning is contained in that? Maybe I think most guys are jerks and most girls are prettier than guys? I'm a teenage guy. Not much 'deeper meaning' required there!)

Anyway, we were all waiting for this burning cup thing to pick some names for some competition. It must be a big deal, because everyone was tense waiting for the results. Even I was excited, although I don't know why. The people picked were to be over 17 and I knew I wasn't. Wasn't sure what age I was, but I knew I didn't qualify. But I was just as tense as everyone else.

The headmaster stepped forward and declared the goblet was ready to make its choices.

As he as speaking the flames from the cup thing rose higher and changed color, becoming a more red-orange where before they were lower and bluer.

(Pomfrey said everything could have significance so I should write as much detail as I remember. I don't remember the color of the cup, or even its shape, but I remember the color of the flames. Weird eh?)

Anyway, a scrap of paper flew out of the cup before the headmaster could say anything else. He snatched it from the air (I wonder if he used to be a seeker? Nice reflexes!) and then looked down the Gryffindor table until he locked eyes with me.

Before he could say anything, the cup spit out another piece of paper, then another, then another. All of which he grabbed from the air as easily as I could take three steps.

(Seriously thinking seeker here!)

He read the next and with increasing speed read the next two.

"The Champion for Hogwarts is… Harry Potter."

The hall became noisy with people screaming cheater while others were laughing and clapping.

"The Champion for Durmstrang is… Harry Potter."

The hall fell silent. I was wondering how I could be two champions in a TRI-wizard tournament.

"The Champion for Beauxbaton is… Harry Potter."

People started mumbling and whispering… rather loudly. The Terror Twins were looking at each other shaking their heads negatively as people began to point their fingers toward them.

"And the Champion for an unnamed school is… Harry Potter."

And then I woke up. I have to say, given the way my life usually goes, I could totally see something this screwed up happening to me.

AN: Yeah, that would be a bit annoying and REALLY short, so I decided to post the next day's diary entry also.

Dear Dream Journal,

Entry 2:

I guess writing in you does something after all. I don't believe I have ever had a 'part two' dream before, but after writing in you yesterday and then talking to Madame Pomfrey about it, last night I had a continuation of the previous dream.

In the dream, Dumbledore was really angry, I can see why Voldemort would fear him. He tried to get the selection voided and redrawn. But one of the ministry guys told him it didn't matter. Because my name came out of the goblet, I was required to participate. Not only that, but because my name came out four times, I had to participate as four separate contestants. Meaning I had to do every task FOUR times!

This was the point where Draco made his usual dream visit to say something mean.

"So, if the first task is dragons, Potter has to face FOUR of them!", Draco crowed.

Then Draco changed into a white ferret and started running down the Slytherin table squeaking 'help me you dolts' or something like that. I don't speak ferret. At least I don't think I do. After all, I didn't think I spoke snake either…

Anyway, my ferret inspection was interrupted by the headmaster demanding anyone with knowledge of this cock up (not his words, but nicer than what he actually said. I won't write that down, even in private!) to stand up now.

Most of the students over 17 stood up!

Turns out Krum was a deft hand at poker. Unbeatable was the term most often attributed to him during the following investigation. So, Krum organized a poker tournament between of age students of the three schools on the DL, whatever that means. The rules were simple, if you ran out of money you also had to forfeit your right to enter the Triwizard tournament. To ensure you didn't cheat and try to put your name in later, everyone who was knocked out of the tournament had to submit Harry Potter's name instead of their own. Since Harry was underage, there was no chance he would be chosen.

Krum thought he would be the only contestant and thus the Triwizard Champion by default. Since cheating is a long-established tradition in the TriWiz, Krum did not see anything wrong with his behavior.

Unfortunately, someone else was stirring the pot too.

The headmaster's investigation found the goblet had been confounded, rather badly if not repeatedly. The end result was the goblet's belief (see? Sentient magic items.. BAD IDEA!) there were four schools to choose champions for. And as Dumbledore determined, the ONLY actual of age applicant was Krum.

Krum did not consider the goblet would choose me over him. Or that the goblet would choose an underage wizard for any of the positions, since the headmasters had said only of age wizards could apply. He forgot the goblet was an ancient device and created long before people cared if a kid died in a public spectacle.

It was, dare I say, Inconceivable! (Yeah, I like the book. Get over it. You're a book too!)

Anyway, somehow Ron was screaming at me for cheating. Hermione was giving me 'the eyes' and saying, 'Oh Harry'.

And a white weasel running around my feet squeaking, "Dragons" or something like it.

I warned you…

My dreams are weird.