Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 4

Similarities create friendships while differences hold them together. - Unknown

To Quentin and Connor's delight, they learned on Tuesday that they had won the starting Chaser positions for the house team. Ivy was elated, as well, that she had been made a reserve Beater. They would all have practice together two or three times a week until the week before their first match, and then practice would take place every evening that they could possibly book the pitch. They planned to try to get out to the pitch an hour early whenever possible so that Zack could have a chance to improve his flying skills, and Rachel hoped to be able to convince Professors Lupin and McGonagall to allow her to go out with them, as well.

On Wednesday they had their first real practice, and came back to the Common Room that evening full of smiles and enthusiastic chatter. Thursday morning's morning mail brought a large Eagle Owl with a gift for Quentin. His father had sent him a pair of professional Chaser's gloves, each with his name, and the Gryffindor lion stitched onto the backs in gold. An impressed, "Wow!" was the most common comment made when others at the table saw them. When Vanessa also spotted them, she came to the table and sneered at him, "Dad must be going soft in the head, Leo."

"Why does she always call you that?" Zack asked, shooting her a dirty look, when she returned to her place at the Slytherin table.

"My family has been in Slytherin for hundreds of years," Quentin explained, not sparing his sister a second look. "She's upset that I've been the first to break with family tradition and get sorted into Gryffindor - the lion."

"How does your dad feel about it?" Ivy asked curiously.

"Well he seemed a little disappointed in his letters at first," Quentin said thoughtfully, tugging the gloves onto his hands. "But judging from these, I'd say he's gotten over it!"

On Friday morning, Connor was a bit bleary-eyed at breakfast, and cursed the dream that kept recurring when he closed his eyes to sleep at night. It seemed that he was having the same dream in one form or another at least three nights a week, and always woke feeling as if he'd never gone to sleep in the first place. He might have worried that the dreams were trying to tell him something, but as far as he could remember from them, nothing ever really happened in them, aside from the walls spinning. 'Maybe I'll borrow Aiden or Victoria's copy of the Dream Oracle,' he thought to himself. 'They're both in third year." Then he remembered that Aiden wasn't taking Divination, and Victoria (his Uncle Charlie's daughter) had sworn never to let him borrow another book after he had destroyed her copy of 'Mr. Smitty's Adventures in Muggle Land' when she'd been seven. That girl had an unbelievable memory, and had kept that oath for the past six years. He would have to check one out of the school library if he really wanted to know what the dream meant, if anything.

"No offense," Ivy said to him from across the table, "But you don't look so good."

"None taken," he mumbled. "I feel like I could have slept another eight hours."

"It's no wonder, with the way you were thrashing around in your sleep," Zack said, reaching for the butter dish.

"Not to mention the fact that you've been talking in your sleep almost constantly since the start of term." Quentin added casually, checking his potions homework over for errors. "That is, when you're not snoring loud enough to wake the dead."

Ivy giggled at this, but Connor was stunned. "I talk in my sleep?"

"All the time," Zack shrugged.

"What do I say?" he asked. Maybe knowing what he said while he was asleep would help solve the mystery of why he kept having the same dream.

"I dunno," Zack said as he spooned up porridge. "Mostly mumbling, or stuff that doesn't make sense."

"Last night you were practically yelling, 'which door? Which door?' for a minute, then you just turned over and started snoring," Quentin supplied. "I was so tired, I just threw a pillow at you and went back to sleep."

For a moment, the part of his dream with the many doors in the round room swam to the forefront of Connor's memory, and he shivered. Maybe he would go find that book in the library after classes today.

**********

Later that night, after Quidditch practice and homework, Connor sat on his bed with the drapes drawn around it, with a copy of 'The Dream Oracle' propped up on his raised knees, reading by wandlight.

"To dream that you are entering through a door signifies fresh opportunities that will be presented to you. You are entering into a new stage in your life and moving from one level of consciousness to another. A door that opens to the outside signifies your need to be more accessible to others, whereas a door that opens into the inside signifies your desire for inner exploration and self-discovery.

To see doors opened in your dream, symbolizes your receptiveness and willingness to accept new ideas. To see a light behind the door suggests that you are moving toward greater enlightenment/spirituality.

To dream that the door is locked, signifies opportunities that are denied and not available to you or that you have missed out on. To be outside of a locked door, suggests that you are having some anti-social tendencies. To be inside the locked door, then it represents harsh lessons that need to be learned.

To dream that you are locking doors, suggests that you are closing yourself off from others; hesitant in letting others in and revealing your feelings. It can be indicative of some fear and low self-worth."

"What the bloody hell is that supposed to mean?" Connor asked himself irritably. Nothing in what he'd just read really applied to the situation in which he found himself in his dreams. He entered a door to get to the round room, but then he was presented with several others. He had no idea if the doors in his dream were locked or not, and though he knew that there was light behind the doors, he thought that the book meant that the light needed to beyond an open door.

With a sigh, he set the book aside and decided to give it a rest for the night. He wasn't sure he believed in dream interpretation, anyway. His father certainly avoided talking about any sort of divination, though it was understandable in his case. Having a prophecy made about you before you were even born had to be disconcerting, especially if it predicted the defeat of a Dark Lord. Connor knew the whole story, of course, and he also knew that both of his parents had been really distressed when his own precognitive abilities had emerged. If the truth were to be told, Connor sometimes thought his life would be easier if he was a seer, and only had to worry about the odd prophecy every once in a while, instead of dealing with making dozens of small predictions a day.

Really, what use was it, to know ahead of time what was being served for dinner or that Professor Thompson was going to give them a surprise test? At least then he wouldn't have to be careful about what he was saying and doing at all times so that no one found out about it. That had always been rule number one with his Mum and Dad, 'Never flaunt your abilities, or people may try to take advantage of you." The memory of what his Mum had done to Mundungus Fletcher when he had taken him to the Annual Abergavenny Owl Race when he had been eight years old still stood out clearly in his mind. Old Dung had been trying to get him to discern which owl would be the winner, when his parents had Apparated within inches of them and given the older wizard a piece of their minds. His Dad had been angry, but it was nothing compared to what his Mum had been. She had put him in a full body bind, and then had hexed him so badly, that he hadn't been able to talk for a week; all the noise he had been able to make was the braying of a donkey.

Still chuckling at that memory, Connor shoved the book beneath his pillow. He didn't want his friends to know that he was having recurring dreams, and Quentin and Zack would surely want to know why he was reading a Divination textbook if they found out. He settled down beneath his covers, and with a yawn, fell asleep.

"Which door?" he asked, more to himself that to his companions, who were all looking around them in bewilderment. "Which door will take us to her?"

"It's your vision, mate," Quentin said, sounding nervous, and holding his wand at the ready.

"Look, there are five of us," Rachel said logically. "We should each just pick a door and see what's on the other side. There are only a dozen, it shouldn't take long to find the one that Connor told us about, assuming that one of these doors leads directly into that room."

"And if none of them does?" Zack asked, tentatively approaching a door, but not attempting to open it, as there was no handle.

"Lets worry about that if we come to that problem," Connor said impatiently. "We don't have much time!"

He strode forward and placed his hand on the door directly in front of him, intending to push it open...

Connor woke with a start as his body landed with a whump on the small carpet beside his bed, the sound of his startled shout still issuing from his throat.

"What are you on about, Potter?" came the irritated voice of Andrew Tillman through the darkness of the dormitory.

"Sorry," Connor whispered in reply, as he pushed himself off of the ground. "Nightmare."

"You're the nightmare," Andrew shot back nastily. "I swear, with all the noise you make, it would be quieter in the Owlery."

"Then why don't you go sleep there?" came Quentin's equally nasty voice from his bed. He had never liked Andrew, who often made snide comments about the Malfoy family, and he wasn't about to stand for the little berk mouthing off to his best friend.

"All of you shut up!" Zack said tiredly. "It's three in the morning!"

"Sorry," Connor said again. He climbed back into his four-poster and lay awake for a while, pondering this new version of his regular dream. Who was the 'her' that he had talked about this time? Why was he trying to find anyone in that strange place? Was it really a place at all, or just symbolic of something else in his subconscious? After so many dreams over the past two months, he didn't believe that there wasn't some meaning to all of it, whether it was a form of divination or not. These short glimpses of the same scene were frustrating, and Connor had no idea how to either make the dream progress further or else block them out entirely. Eventually he fell back to sleep, and wasn't disturbed by anything else until the morning sun shone through the window of the room to wake him.

The next morning after breakfast, Andrew Tillman was sitting in the Common Room with the other second years, talking loudly about his misfortune at having to share a room with Connor, Zack and Quentin. "I can't believe that I have to share a room with them! One snores and shouts in his sleep, one has a father who was a convict, for Merlin's sake, and the third one didn't even know he was a wizard until he got the letter. I've a mind to ask Professor Lupin to move me to a room with the rest of you, even if it does mean that there would be five of us in a room."

Quentin rolled his eyes as he waited for Ivy to make the next move in the game of chess they had set up. Zack was sprawled on the floor beside their table flipping through his chocolate Frog cards, chuckling when he ran across one for Harry Potter, and chucking it over to Connor, who was writing a letter by the window, and listening idly to Andrew's tirade. He looked at the card and snorted before tossing it back, and continued with his letter.

"Only one problem with that, Tillman," one of the boys in his group said.

"What's that?" Andrew asked curiously.

"We don't want you in our dorm, either," he replied.

Andrew looked shocked and affronted when the other boys nodded in agreement. "But, but..."

"Look, I don't know what your problem is lately, but you never have a nice word to say about anyone," the other boy, Tim, continued, "It makes us all wonder what you say about us when we're not around. I don't know about Malfoy and Ellis, and I don't really care, but Potter's dad pretty much saved the world, so I think that if he wants to snore, shout or dance the tango in his sleep, he's entitled."

Andrew shot to his feet as Connor laughed outright, and said, "Fine! I have plenty of other friends, I don't need you!" He stormed out of the portrait hole, leaving the other boys alone.

"Wow," Zack said quietly to Ivy, Quentin and Connor. "Looks like we aren't the only ones sick of his mouth."

"I feel bad," Tim said to his friends. "But I couldn't take it any more. He was all right last year, but ever since he got back from summer holidays, he's been a huge prat."

"It had to be done," one of the other boys said consolingly. "He's been out of line for a while now."

"They're right," Ivy said quietly, finally moving one of her pieces on the board. "He insulted me the other day when I tried to help him with his mandrake in Herbology. Something's crawled up his shorts, and he's taking it out on everyone else.'

"You know," Quentin observed. "We should probably keep an eye on him now; there's no telling how nasty he'll get after this."

"Yeah," Connor agreed, scratching his nose with his quill and getting ink on his cheek. "At least be sure to lock up your stuff and check your bed before getting in. He strikes me as the type to resort to mean pranks to get back at someone."