Beyond the Realm of Dreams

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Harry dreamed he was flying.

Great feathered wings as brilliant and vivid as the evening sun protruded from his back and kept him aloft, sliding through the air with powerful ease. He could feel the sheer strength in his muscle, and he let out a cry of absolute joy, flourishing in the freedom away from the close and smothering earth far below.

Whether it was on a broom or here in his dreams, Harry could find no freedom but in flight, free of the boundaries that constricted the physical and mortal body. The chilled wind stole away his breath, but he had just enough to laugh jubilantly and press on flying, farther and farther away from his worries and fears and unwanted responsibilities.

These were his elements, the winds of liberty and boundlessness and the fierce fire of passion and being.

But then the refreshing coolness turned icy, and the fire turned to ash and shadow; looking down, Harry saw innumerable beings of tall height and covered in the anonymity of hooded cloaks; but he knew what they were, for his soul cried out in pain and anguish.

The wind became the claws of ravens, shrieking and tearing at him until the delicate frame of his precious wings snapped in a flurry of pale feathers and scarlet ribbons and his slight body fell back once again to the cold, hard earth amidst his screams.

But he never felt the impact, because he was suddenly cradled in strong, thin arms. Looking up, he met the crimson eyes of his rescuer; looking past, he saw the leering, gaping skulls of the Dementors and terror seized his heart.

"Ah, my child," the Dark Lord whispered, and Harry screamed again as cold, cold fingers brushed against his warm skin with dark intent. "Do not struggle, for no one will help you. They will throw you to the shadows, my child, my love, and no one will save you." And the fingers pressed against the bloody wounds where his wings had been, a heartrending sob escaping Harry's lips; then they trailed down his spine, touching and seeking as though searching for the secrets of the universe written in his flesh.

"You are lost in the darkness, Harry, and you will never find your way back to the light."

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The tinkling of breaking crystal broke the silence of the room as Remus Lupin threw the empty shot glass back to the table. His golden eyes, normally a honeyed amber, glowed with feral rage.

"Drinking away your worries, Lupin," observed a silkily snide voice. "How crass."

"Fuck off, Snape," the werewolf snarled, voice more animal than human.

"And miss the sight of the mild professor drinking himself into an enraged frenzy? Besides, if Albus knew I had left you alone in this state so soon after the full moon, he would be rather upset."

"Albus," Remus hissed poisonously. "Sodding sanctimonious son of a gutter whore with his head so far up his own ass he eats his own fucking shit!"

A cruel smirk twisted Snape's thin lips. "How much have you had to drink, Lupin?"

Remus pointedly ignored the (large) empty bottle of Firewhiskey.

"What am I going to do, Severus?" the tawny-haired young man asked rhetorically in a weary voice, his rage suddenly deflating and settling neatly into despair. "I've failed everyone. James, Lily...Sirius...but mostly him." The gaunt face turned to meet Snape's, wretchedness wrought into every line and angle. "How could I have failed him? Harry! My own godson!"

Snape felt it wise under the circumstances not to point out that it had been Black that was the godfather, not Lupin. "You could have hardly done anything in your state, Lupin," he replied calmly.

"But I should have!" he roared, suddenly leaping into life and grabbing the empty bottle, shattering it against the far wall. "I should have been able to save him!"

"Stop sniveling, you lycanthropic moron," Snape growled, utterly disgusted by the other man's display. "Did it not occur to you that while I would rather be spending my time anywhere but in your company, I am currently here watching you make a pathetic spectacle of yourself?"

"Then what bright ideas have you gotten, Snape?" Remus retorted, chest heaving with emotion. "He's in Azkaban by now. That pretty much shoots down any fucking plan!"

"Sit down before you hurt yourself, Lupin. There's always a way to get through someone's defenses."

"You would know about that."

"If you don't keep your puerile mouth closed, werewolf, then I shall leave you to drink yourself off the edge of sanity."

"Why do you care, anyway, Snape? You hated James, and you hate Harry."

"And that still holds true. But I know the Prophecy, Lupin."

"Not even the Order knows that!"

"Dumbledore holds me in very close confidence," Snape said dryly. "It basically states that one cannot live while the other is alive, and one must die at the hand of the other."

Remus stared at him, horror replacing the drunken rage.

"So you see, werewolf, this goes above any petty disagreements I might hold with the Potter line. I survive by any means possible, Lupin, and if that means collaborating with your admittedly not unable mind and freeing an innocent boy from Azkaban, then so be it."

Remus looked down at the pieces of the shattered shot glass, before seating himself calmly in his chair and casually sweeping the shards aside. Though his mind still spun a bit from the alcohol, the sudden knowledge that he was doing something cleared the alcoholic effects more thoroughly than any potion could have. He gestured to the opposite chair, which Snape grudgingly took.

"What did you have in mind, Severus?" he asked pleasantly.

Over the old oaken table, the cunning mind of a longtime Slytherin spy and the sharp intellect of a scholarly strategist plotted the rescue of an innocent Harry Potter, a boy that had swiftly become known as one of the most deranged serial killers of the magical world.

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Daily Prophet Special Edition

Friday, November 13, 1996

Boy-Who-Lived Convicted Murderer

HOGSMEADE--After a lengthy trial, Harry James Potter was convicted of assault and murder at six-thirty this evening by the Wizengamot.

"He's a bloody Death Eater!" Ronald Weasley exclaimed, once the best friend of the errant Potter. He followed with several expletives and outbursts, tears pouring down his face, and was backed by Miss Hermione Granger, the last member of the famous Hogwarts trio.

"I don't know how he could have done this," she cried. "He even said he respected the Order for what they had done against the Dark Lord!"

After the public revelation of the Order of the Phoenix, there had been mass support for the vigilante group led by none other than Albus Dumbledore, despite the Minister's protests. It had been assumed that Harry Potter would become a working member of the Order, but none could have foreseen the extent of the damage caused by the Dark Lord.

He was convicted for the brutal murders that left several Order members dead and fatally wounded, among whom included Auror Kingsley Shacklebolt and the renowned prankster George Weasley, co-founder of Weasley's Wizard Wheezes, as well as Hogwarts Caretaker and Professor of Care of Magical Creatures, Rubeus Hagrid. The events occurred on Halloween night, an ironic gesture that many believe only validates Potter's guilt. The victims' eviscerated and mutilated bodies had been found fifty meters within the Forbidden Forest, a place that other students claim to have been frequented by the boy.

"We found his magical signature all over the bodies," reported Chief Magical Investigator Mathew Finch-Fletchley, "and the Priori Incantatem spell revealed the use of the alleged Dark Curses by his wand."

Because of the Underage Wizardry Agreement and its potent properties, Veritaserum cannot be administered to a minor, but Finch-Fletchley is confident that they have sufficient evidence to prove that the Boy-Who-Lived is now the Boy-Who-Killed.

When asked for a motive, Finch-Fletchley says that several medimagi have put forth the theory that the infamous connection between Harry Potter and the Dark Lord finally drove him over the edge.

"It's possible that the constant seepage of Dark magic into his mind poisoned him until he fell completely to You-Know-Who's influence. However, it is a little known fact that Dark magic requires a willing user to be utilized, so some of it must have been voluntary. And if that's the case, then it would be safer for everyone if Potter were placed behind protective bars," claimed Healer Arthur McCoy.

Harry Potter's sentence is two life-terms in Azkaban without parole or appeal.

"We are already in the midst of a war with You-Know-Who," said Minister Fudge. "We don't need a war being waged in our own school, and hearts."

When asked to comment, Albus Dumbledore declined.

--Autumn Almaden, Daily Prophet Reporter

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Draco Malfoy lay on his back with his legs swinging idly off the side of the bed, staring at the emerald green canopy of his bed and absently rubbing the inside of his left arm.

"Draco?"

"What, Parkinson?" he barked sharply, irritated at having been interrupted in his brooding.

The pug-faced girl stood just outside his door, knowing better than to enter without his permission, and snorted, hands on her hips. "Damn, Malfoy, bite my fucking head off, why don't you!"

"Come any closer, and I'll do much worse," Draco snapped.

"Just came to tell you that its dinnertime, but forget it!" Pansy Parkinson flounced off in a huff, presumably towards the Great Hall.

Draco often wondered how his father thought that Parkinson would be a good marital match, but then remembered that the Parkinson family was well connected in the black market.

But Father always gets what he wants, Draco mused bitterly, resisting the urge to claw at his arm. Money, power, Narcissa, and now, my life and loyalty.

He wanted to find Potter and mock him for his muggle-ish attitude and poor clothing and sheer awkwardness, but the boy just had to get himself dragged to Azkaban.

It's a load of shit, really. Who in their right mind would think that good wittle ol' Potter could have the creativity to kill those people, let alone the guts?

The Slytherin remembered the night the bodies had been found.

I was with Parkinson at Dumbledore's new Halloween Ball, because I didn't want to put up with her whining about what a horrid fiancé I am. Potter left the Great Hall early, complaining about not feeling good. I danced a bit more, more for appearance than anything else, and about three hours later a Hufflepuff couple that had been snogging outside ran back inside screaming, saying that they had seen Potter walking out of the forest covered in blood.

That moronic headmaster sent McGonagall to check Gryffindor Tower, while he and the other professors went to the grounds after restricting al the students in the Great Hall so that no one could leave or enter. Finally, Potter was dragged in, looking dazed and shaken and paler than usual--and, indeed, drenched in more blood than the Bloody Baron could have ever been.

Then came the Aurors, and the evacuation of the Great Hall as every student was sent back to their Common Room, and the next day the Daily Prophet reported that Potter had tortured and killed six people with violently bloody, Dark curses.

Honestly.

What bullshit.

Shacklebolt, Hagrid, one of the Weasleys, Susan Bones of Hufflepuff, the Unspeakable Rookwood, and...Blaise Zabini of Slytherin.

Draco suddenly leapt to his feet and began pacing around the dormitory, empty after he had thrown out the other students.

Voldemort had set this up; he knew it with every instinct he had ever come to trust.

But why?

He needed to find someone to speak with, but none of his Housemates would do; either they were already sided with the Dark Lord, or they would hardly care. Nor could he speak with the headmaster, whom he trusted about as far as he could throw him, and it was obvious that the seemingly omnipotent Dumbledore was fast losing his influence in the Ministry anyway.

Then...Severus?

But he's a Death Eater, a little voice argued in his mind.

But he's my godfather. And he's never tried to influence me before, like Lucius does so blatantly.

There was a moment of hesitation; then, in a billowing of expensive robes, the Malfoy heir strode from the dormitory to seek out his godfather.

I won't let my future become part of some chess match.

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Lily, take Harry and run! I'll hold him off!

Murderer! How could I have trusted you?!

You're nothing but a freak! A worthless, useless waste of space! If your lot truly cared about you, why would they foist you on us every summer?

Shaking, Harry curled in the cold stone corner of his cell beneath the ragged, threadbare cloak he had been left with. Tears fell unheeded, unnoticed in the face of the screams and the accusations and the hatred wrought in his mind by the presence of the excited Dementors, and his brilliant green eyes were fathomless with despair.

He had tried, ever so hard, to keep track of the days; but after only the third day he could no longer hold off the icy chill creeping into his mind and carrying him away deep into his imagination and memories on dark, scaled wings.

And always, always there was the high, merciless laughter; even when his mother's screams rose to an ear-shattering pitch, the vicious sound twined with hers until they drowned out all his other senses and he became those cries of abject terror and malicious cruelty.

Only the physical pain kept him grounded.

Deep gouges in his forearms, left by blunt nails, itched with drying blood, and the nails themselves had nearly been torn away by the furrows they marked in the stone of his prison. Sometimes the bleeding would fail, and so he would throw himself with ever-dying strength against the walls, relishing in the bruising and cracking of his bones that kept the fire alive, the light and flames that banished--if only for a little while--the shadows and the agony of his breaking heart.

Sometimes the brief moments of clarity would bring back the memory of Remus' face, his Moony, and the words his Moony had spoken just before they thrown him into hell.

"It might take a few years, my little cub, but Severus and I will save you. We'll find you, Harry, and always remember that you're innocent. Remember Sirius, cub, and remember your innocence, and remember that one day we will get you out."

But then the Dementors would return, and the doubts would return and the nightmares would begin anew until he could no longer know what was reality and what were his dreams, and what was the difference anyway?

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"Mirror, mirror, on the wall...who's the fairest of them all?"

Voldemort laughed softly, amused at the muggle expression.

"M--my lord?" ventured a stuttering voice easily recognizable as Wormtail.

"Speak, my servant."

"Are--are you all right?"

Gazing into the mirror, Voldemort could see the shaking form of his craven follower. But instead of being enraged by the impertinent question, it satisfied his growing malice.

"Quite," he hissed silkily, the cold smirk pulling his thin lips away from the pointed canines. "Everything is falling into place, like so many little pieces of a good adventure. But do you know why this story is different, my dear Wormtail?"

"No, m--my lord."

"Because this story's villain lives in the very head of our tragic hero."

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