Foreshadowing the Past

Chapter 11

Your future depends on many things, but mostly on you. --Frank Tyger

Connor made his way back to the Gryffindor Common Room, lost in thought. While he was glad that his parent's minds had been put at ease, he couldn't shake the feeling that Madam MacTaggart's theory about his dreams wasn't the right one. He wished now that he had thought to ask his parents who was with them in the Department of Mysteries, but it was too late now. If he continued to ask questions about it, they would only be reminded of Uncle Sirius's death, and Connor wasn't keen to see the grief in his father's eyes again any time soon. His parents had also steadfastly avoided actually naming the Department of Mysteries, so he could not admit to them now that he knew about it at all. He yawned widely as he climbed the final staircase and headed for the portrait of the Fat Lady that covered the entrance to Gryffindor Tower. It was only coming up on ten o'clock, but it felt much later than that to him as he wondered if there was any point in having his friends continue to look for information about what he has seen in his dreams.

Connor knew that he would continue looking for information about it; he wanted to know more about the battle at the Ministry that his father had told him about. He might also have the chance to ask his aunts and uncles about it over the approaching Christmas holiday, but he would need to work out who to ask, and how to bring it up.

"Haversacking," he muttered to the portrait. It swung open to admit him, and he climbed through the hole to find his friends waiting up for him. Rachel was sitting closest to the fire reading a very old and battered copy of Hogwarts, A History, with Quentin half-dozing beside her with his potions book in his lap. Zack and Ivy were sprawled on the floor in front of the couch, playing a lazy game of chess and arguing over whether or not a Mandrake could be considered a beast instead of a plant.

"Connor!" Rachel said, looking up from her book and spotting him. "What did Madam MacTaggart have to say?"

Connor looked around to make sure that there wasn't anyone around who shouldn't hear about his meeting, but there we only a couple of his cousins at a nearby table, and a small cluster of first years playing exploding snap in the corner by the notice board. Quentin had perked up a bit, and scooted down to make room for Connor between himself and Rachel, glad that his bed to stay awake hadn't gone in vain. He had been considering going to bed and hearing about it in the morning, but Ivy had insisted that she was going to wait up, and so he had joined the others.

"Well," Connor said quietly. "It's kind of weird, but I guess it makes sense.'

Ivy and Zack abandoned their game and sat up so that they could hear without making Connor speak too loudly.

"When I got there, my parents were waiting with Madam MacTaggart, but they left when it was time for me to talk to her. I told her about my dreams, but I didn't tell her that I knew that I was dreaming about the Department of Mysteries...."

He told them everything that had transpired in the meeting, and Rachel gave a soft cry of dismay over the detail of Sirius Black being killed there. She, too, had been raised on stories of "the old days" from her aunts and uncles, and was as familiar with stories about him as she was of tales about her Grandfather Arthur. Connor nodded at her dismay, and told them all that they shouldn't feel obliged to continue looking for information if they didn't want to, but that he intended to find out as much as he could about the battle at the Ministry that his father had talked about. Rachel immediately volunteered to help, and said that she was as curious about it as he was, but urged him to continue with his account of the meeting. Everyone listened intently until Connor finished speaking, and then Quentin said, "So the dreams are really just memories?"

"That's what they think," Connor said evasively.

"But you don't?" Zack asked shrewdly.

"I'm not sure," Connor admitted. "I don't get why my mind would absorb all that detail from my Dad, and then turn around and substitute his old friends' faces with my friends. Something about it all just doesn't feel right."

"Well only you can know for sure, I guess," Ivy said. "But this woman is supposed to be an expert, right?"

"A leading expert in the field of Divination," Rachel supplied knowingly.

"But Connor picking up his Dad's thoughts isn't a form of Divination is it?" Zack asked. He was still unfamiliar with the exact definitions of a lot of the magical terms.

"I don't know," Connor said. "But if she's right, then the dreams should go away on their own. She told my dad to clear his mind before he goes to sleep, and that it should help keep me from dreaming about his memories."

"Maybe you should do the same," Quentin suggested. "Just clear your mind and relax before you fall asleep. I know my Dad likes to meditate in his office every evening; says it relaxes him."

"It's worth a try, I suppose," Connor said. "I'm going to head up to bed now; I'm practically falling asleep right now."

"Me too!" Quentin agreed around a huge jaw-cracking yawn.

They had all been huddled by the fire for over an hour, so they decided it was past time for all of them to go to bed. It was agreed that they meet in the Common Room before breakfast the next morning, and decide what they would do with their Saturday from there. Connor had vague thoughts of spending at least part of his weekend in the Library, if he could avoid Madam Pince and find a nice secluded table in the back of the stacks. He thought that it would be very hard to clear his mind tonight, but decided to give it a try, for his parents' sake. As curious as he was about the Department of Mysteries, he didn't know if he wanted to see his father's memory of his Godfather dying.

That night, it wasn't Connor that woke them all with shouting, but Andrew. Connor was jolted awake by the cry of, "Dad! Nooooo!" It took him a moment to realize that the sound had not come from his own throat, but from the far end of the room where Andrew slept. When the boy called out, "Don't do it! Come back!" he swung his legs over the side of his bed and flung open the drapes that he had drawn around his bed earlier in an attempt to block out any disruptions while he tried to clear his mind. Andrew's drapes were also drawn, but Quentin and Zack preferred to sleep with theirs open most nights, and they were both sitting up looking first at Connor, then at Andrew's bed.

"What's going on?" Zack asked sleepily.

"I think Andrew's having a nightmare," Connor said, standing and walking over to pull aside the drapes. The other boy was thrashing around, wrestling with his sheets, a sheen of sweat on his face visible in the light of the nearly full moon that shone brightly through the window beside the bed. His light brown hair, usually immaculately combed, was in wild disarray, and plastered to his damp forehead in places from his struggle. Connor tentatively reached down and shook the other boy's shoulder somewhat roughly, saying loudly, "Andrew! Wake up! It's only a dream!"

It actually took several more tries to rouse the other boy, and by that time, Quentin and Zack had also left their beds to see what the problem was.

"He looks like he's burning up," Zack Murmured to Quentin. "Maybe he's ill."

Before anyone could comment on that, Andrew's eyes shot open with a wild and desperate look in them, and the three boys all backed up a step. Connor walked over to the table against the wall and poured a tumbler full of water and brought it back, giving Andrew time to catch his breath.

"Are you all right?" he asked quietly as he handed the water over. Andrew took the glass gratefully and gulped it down before taking a deep breath and nodding. "That must have been some nightmare."

"Yes," was the only answer he gave. He didn't meet the eyes of the other boys as he wiped at his sweaty face, and was thankful that none of them commented about the tears drying on his cheeks, if they saw them at all. He handed the glass back to Connor, who took it back to the little table, and then lay back down.

"If you're sure you're okay," Connor said.

"I'm fine. Thank you," Andrew said stiffly.

"Good night then," he responded, sharing a quick look with Zack and Quentin as he returned to his own bed.

In the morning, Andrew was gone when they woke, and the other boys agreed that they didn't need to mention the disturbance to the other boy again. They had agreed to be civil to each other after all, and Andrew hadn't seemed to want to talk about it. When they had dressed and gone down to the Common Room, they found Ivy standing in a chair behind Rachel, gathering her hair together in a complicated looking plait down the back of her head.

"You look a lot like my Mum," Connor decided as he looked at her from the front.

"I'll take that as a compliment," Rachel said with a smile. "What are we going to do today?"

"We're going to want to wait about fifteen minutes before we head down to breakfast," Connor said absently, picking up a copy of the Daily Prophet that someone had left lying on a nearby table. "Peeves is making a mess of the Ravenclaw table right now." All of his friends paused to look at him, but he didn't notice. He was staring at the newspaper without reading it, an idea forming in his head. "Rachel," he said suddenly. "Does the Hogwarts Library have back issues of newspapers?"

"How far back?" she asked with a frown.

"About twenty years back," he said. "To when my Dad would have been in his fifth year here."

Comprehension dawned on her face, and she said, "I'm not sure, but I'll bet we can find out quickly enough!"

Ivy quickly tied a bit of ribbon around the end of the plait, and the little group all headed for the portrait hole. When they got to the Library, they found that Madam Pince was not there yet, and so they all filed to the Great Hall, where Professor McGonagall was indeed seeing to the clean up of a huge mess at the Ravenclaw table, muttering about uncontrollable poltergeists the entire time. They took seats at the Gryffindor table and filled their plates.

"So what exactly are we going to look for if the school does happen to have twenty years worth of newspapers in storage?" Rachel asked.

"Well my dad mentioned a battle at the Ministry of Magic, so I would think that it would be a headline. I reckon we should look for anything that mentions a battle there, Sirius Black, or the Department of Mysteries." Connor said.

"So we're spending another day in the Library?" Ivy asked with interest.

"On a Saturday?" Quentin said with a groan.

"You guys don't have to help if you don't want to," Connor grinned at Quentin's less than enthusiastic response. "Why don't you and Zack go and put together a game of snow Quidditch? There must be at least six inches of new snow since last night."

It snowed last night?" Ivy asked, looking up at the gray sky overhead, reflected in the ceiling of the Great Hall.

"Yeah," Connor said. "It was really coming down at about four this morning when I got up to go to the loo."

"I think I'd rather spend the day in the Library," Quentin said, pouring a steaming cup of tea. "I hate being cold."

"Why don't you cast heating charms on your clothes?" Ivy asked.

"Because every time I try, I end up setting fire to what ever I'm trying to warm," he admitted through gritted teeth.

Rachel bit her lip and looked the other way, and Ivy giggled, but Zack said eagerly, "I can help you do it properly. You're probably just putting the stress on the wrong syllable of the incantation."

"Judging by the amount of snow out there, and more bound to be coming, you might want to take him up on that offer," Connor said.

Quentin nodded glumly, and changed the subject. "I saw Professor Snape walking around taking down the names of the students staying at school over the holidays."

"I think there are quite a few staying this year," Ivy said. "I know at least two of the second year Gryffindor girls are staying."

"I thought of staying," Quentin said. "Just to get a break from Vanessa. Mum and Dad wouldn't hear of it though."

"I wonder what it's like around here at Christmas," Zack said thoughtfully.

"My Dad says it's pretty fun," Connor said. "Or it used to be, when he went here."

"Well I'm not going to be finding out this year," Ivy said. "I already got a letter from my Mum, and my Aunt and Uncle are coming to stay and they want me to be there to entertain my little cousin."

"I couldn't imagine a Christmas away from home," Rachel said. "It's chaos most of the time, but it's a lot of fun."

Connor nodded enthusiastically in agreement, and asked Zack, "What are Muggle Christmases like?"

"I don't think they're much different than Wizarding ones," he shrugged. "My parents have never really made a big deal about Christmas. We usually go out to a restaurant for dinner, and that's about it." Connor and Rachel were looking at him in horror, and Ivy and Quentin were trying to disguise looks of pity as well. "What?" he asked quizzically.

"Please tell me that you at least get presents!" Rachel said sounding scandalized.

"Of course I do!" Zack laughed. "My parents aren't ogres for heaven's sake!"

"Listen, mate," Connor said, and idea forming in his head. "You don't know what you're missing. You should come home with me for Christmas! It'll be brilliant! There are more Weasleys than you could shake a stick at, and we all get together on Christmas Eve for a huge party."

"That sounds great," Zack said a little wistfully. "But I don't know if my parents would go for it. They're still not really sure about this whole Wizarding World yet."

"What if my parents Flooed them and asked them?" Connor asked, getting into the spirit of it now that he'd thought of it.

"Muggles, mate," Zack said with a chuckle. "No Floo."

"Well then my parents can owl your parents," Connor persisted. "What do you say?"

"Well I'd like to come, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for my parents to agree," Zack said doubtfully.

"I'll bet Aunt Ginny and Uncle Harry would even go and meet your parents in person if we asked them to. They could just Apparate and introduce themselves and explain that you'd be in safe hands and all of that business that parents are always so worried about." Rachel added, determined that Zack would not be left to a miserable Christmas with dinner in some restaurant for his festivities.

"I'll write and ask them," Connor decided. He then looked at Quentin and Ivy, who looked slightly mollified that their friend had a chance for a Wizarding kind of holiday, instead of what he had described. "You two should ask your parents if you can Floo over for a day or two before we have to come back to school."

"I don't think my parents will let me out of their sight for that long, but I'll ask," Ivy said cheerfully. "My cousin is only six, and the last time she was here, she uprooted several very sensitive plants in one of the greenhouses. I thought Dad was going to faint when he saw what she'd done."

"If my father won't let me come," Quentin said with a smile, "I'll sneak out; at least for a few hours. I'll be ready for a break from Vanessa within the first day or two, anyway."

As if Professor Snape had heard them talking about it, the teacher appeared with a piece of parchment and a quill and asked, "Are any of you lot planning to stay at Hogwarts for the Christmas holiday?" They all shook their heads and watched him move to another group of students.

"Well," Connor said. "I'm going to head to the Library first and see what I can find, then I'm going to write to Mum and Dad to ask about Zack."

"I'll come with you," Rachel said.

The rest of the group decided to go back to Gryffindor Tower to put on their winter cloaks and prepare to go outside to play in the snow. No sooner had they all gotten out onto the grounds, than Connor and Rachel joined them, looking morose. "Madam Pince says that they only carry one year's worth of back issues of the Prophet, and if we want to read anything further back than that, we would have to write to the Daily Prophet Archive Division and request copies of specific dates," Rachel explained.

"Or we can go to the Archive building in person and look through them all," Connor added. "So we're out of luck there. I think our best bet will be to look for clues at home during our holidays, and hope that someone in the family kept a record of everything that happened back then."

"Grandma Molly has loads of boxes in her attic marked with all of her kid's names. We could snoop around in there while everyone's busy with decorating an such," Rachel said. "But until then, we might as well put it on hold. It's not like finding out about it is going change anything anyway."

Connor agreed, and the friends spent their day having snowball fights and enjoying the snow until they were too cold for even the warming charms to keep the chill out, and then trudged back up to Gryffindor tower exhausted and happy. There was only one more week of classes left until they were to go home, and everyone's mood was high.

It wasn't until dinnertime in the Great Hall that anything really eventful happened. A few owls, most likely delayed by the snowy weather, arrived with post for some of the students, including Andrew. Connor wasn't really paying much attention, though his room mate was sitting just a couple of seats away, and was as surprised as anyone when the other boy stood up with a letter in his hands and fury on his face. The barn owl that had delivered the letter was startled by the sudden movement, and took flight, but Andrew didn't seem to notice.

"Are you okay?" Ivy asked him warily from across the table, not liking the angry expression he wore.

"No, I am not okay!" he said loudly. He turned to face Connor then, with a red face, and his hand crumpling that letter held tight in his fist. "This is all your father's fault, Potter!"

Connor barely had time to register that Andrew had had said that something was his father's fault, and not his, and that the other boy had had furious tears threatening to fall. He only stared open mouthed like the rest of the witnesses to his short tirade before Andrew ran from the Great Hall with many of the other students gaping after him.

"What was that all about?" he asked quietly, to no one in particular. His friends all shrugged, and looked concerned, but no one went after their housemate to find out.