Harry Potter and his Dreams

Harry Potter and his Dreams

Chapter 7

Dumbledore and Sirius sat in silence as Harry finished his story. Harry stood up and took the three stones and the setting and chain from his pocket and placed them on the table.

"I...can't see them," said Sirius, then he shook his head, "no, I can see them, I just...can't focus on them."

Dumbledore nodded, it was the same for him.

Harry took out his wand and recited the incantation that he and Sirius' mother had come up with.

"Remove the spell that hid your name, and forced your years in silence. Restore your pieces once again. Rise, power with defiance!"

White light surrounded the pieces; they rose into the air. There was a blinding flash, then a soft "chink" as the amulet settled back onto the table.

Harry picked up the amulet, whole and looking as though it had never been broken, and handed it to the Headmaster.

Dumbledore stood and took hold of the Amulet.

"Albus Wentworth Dumbledore, you have been chosen to be the next holder of the Wizard's Amulet. Do you accept the amulet and bind yourself to it?" Claudia Potter's voice filled the room.

Dumbledore lifted the chain over his head saying, "I do."

In another flash of light the amulet was no longer visible. A look of wonder crossed his face as he sat back down.

The headmaster sighed and handed Harry the antidote to the truth potion he had taken.

"Now, we have other matters to discuss. First, Harry is the matter of how to discipline you. Despite what you did, you broke a major school rule. You should have told someone; you should not have left the grounds."

Harry nodded, he had expected as much.

"Your Invisibility Cloak will be confiscated for the remainder of the year. Madam Hooch will be keeping your broom. You may only use it for practice and games. If you do not return it to her after each practice or game you will receive a detention. You also serve one detention for each class missed these past few days. You are restricted from visiting Hogsmeade until March.

"I leave the decision of allowing make-up work to your teachers. You will ask each of them if you can make-up the work you have missed.

"Second, I want you to promise us that you will tell us if anything like this happens. Even if you think we'll try to stop you, I want you to tell someone." Dumbledore looked deadly serious.

Harry sighed and nodded, "I promise."

Dumbledore shook his head and gave his pupil a small, sad, smile, "Harry, you give me a heart attack every time you do something like this. I wish you could learn how to trust adults."

Harry didn't know how to respond to this, but was saved from having to do so by Sirius finally speaking up, "Oh, Harry, why couldn't you have told us?"

"Would you have let me go?"

Sirius sighed, "Probably not."

"You couldn't have come with me Sirius. I was fine as soon as I got the first stone, they could protect me. They weren't about to make the same mistake before and leave the carrier unprotected."

Sirius sat bolt upright as he remembered who the last carrier had been, "You visited my mother!"

"Yes," Harry nodded, "she'll be coming," he paused a moment to figure out what day it was, "tomorrow."

"We'll deal with that, then. Right now, I think you should just go on back up to Gryffindor Tower. You may tell Ron and Hermione what you like." Dumbledore told him.

Harry looked at the clock on the wall of the Headmaster's office and was surprised to see that afternoon classes were already over for the day.

He had just stepped out from behind the gargoyle when he found himself in an embrace.

"Harry, you're safe!" Arabella exclaimed, stepping back a bit to get a good look at him.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"I came as soon as I could. I was having classes. What happened? Where did you go?"

Harry sighed, "I think it would be easier if you go look at the record Dumbledore made of it." He turned to go, but Arabella caught him by the arm.

"Are you really okay?" she asked him, concern showing in her eyes.

"I'm great, perfectly fine."

"I'll talk to you later then."

"Harry!" hissed a voice from the stairs.

"Ron," Harry grinned as he saw that Ron had his arm around Hermione's waist, then he frowned, "I'm sorry about how I`ve been treating both of you this past month or so. I...had a lot on my mind."

"As long as you explain, we won't kill you for it."

Harry grinned and the trio made their way to the library.

"Well?" Hermione asked as they sat down at a remote table.

"I found the Wizard's Amulet and brought it back for Dumbledore."

For once, Hermione didn't know what something was--and Ron did.

The red-haired boy gasped, "I thought it was just a legend!"

"No, it's real. Voldemort (Ron sighed at this, but didn't protest, he knew he would never be able to break Harry of the habit) stole it twenty-six years ago after the last owner, my grandmother died. It was being brought to Professor Dumbledore. He tried to destroy it, but even he doesn't have enough power to destroy the Wizard's Amulet. So instead he broke it into three pieces and hid it."

"But I still don't understand what it is." Hermione almost wailed.

"Merlin made the amulet and it gets passed from wizard, or witch, to wizard. Each time the last owner dies, all their power, knowledge, and wisdom get stored in the stone. The next owner can call on that power, they gain all the knowledge and wisdom of the previous owners too. It gets more powerful with each owner; however, the power can only be used defensively, never offensively. There must have been more than a hundred and fifty witches and wizards in there."

"Like who?" asked Hermione, now eagerly curious.

"Well, my grandmother Claudia Robertson Potter, Merlin," Harry decided to have a little fun, "then there were these four who always talked to me as a group. Let me see, what were their names again?" Harry pretended to be thinking hard, "Oh, I remember! Rowena, Helga, Godric and Salazar."

"The founders!" screeched Hermione. Madam Pince bustled over and kicked them out of the library.

"You met the founders?" Ron asked awed as they continued their conversation in the corridor.

"Yes. Helga held the amulet first; when she died Salazar became the owner. After he was murdered it went to Rowena, who passed it on to Godric when she died."

"Salazar Slytherin was murdered?" Hermione said in great astonishment, "There is no mention of that in Hogwarts: A History!"

"Well, there's no mention of this either," and Harry proceeded to tell them what Salazar had said about the Chamber of Secrets.

"Wow," muttered Ron as they approached the portrait of the Fat Lady, "so Salazar Slytherin wasn't a dark wizard, after all."

Harry noticed that the entire way, Ron and Hermione had been holding hands.

The next day after classes Arabella found Harry, "Can you please get Ron and Hermione and bring them to Dumbledore's office?"

Wondering what was going on, Harry went to the Gryffindor common room to find his two friends.

He found them; Hermione was sitting beside Ron, his arm was around her, her head was resting on his shoulder and his chin in her hair.

Harry smiled to himself and then cleared his throat to get their attention. They both looked at him, Hermione sitting up rather abruptly.

"We are wanted in the Headmaster's office." Harry said.

"Why?" Ron asked as Hermione stood up so he could get off the couch too.

Harry shrugged and then grinned, "Since when are you two an item?"

Ron looked at him with a weird expression, "You must have been really distracted last month, because the whole school knows, and you are just figuring it out."

Harry blushed at the reminder of just how off he really had been.

When the three entered the Headmaster's office they found Sirius, Dumbledore and Maria Black in the sitting room.

"Sirius!" Ron exclaimed grinning.

"How are you?" Hermione asked.

"Since Harry's back, safe, just fine. I'd like you to meet my mother, Maria Townsend Black."

"Ron Weasley," Ron stuck out his hand and shook the hand of the older woman.

"Hermione Granger," she did the same.

"I wanted you here to explain your little adventure in your third year." Dumbledore said.

The three of them eagerly told Mrs. Black about that night in the shrieking shack and Peter Pettigrew's appearance.

"Mother," Sirius said softly, "do you believe me? You know I'd never have done anything to hurt James and Lily." He looked at her, begging her with his eyes to believe him.

"Is it really true?" asked Maria unevenly, looking at the sage headmaster sitting before her. He nodded and she started to cry. She stumbled over to Sirius and hugged him for the first time in more than a decade.

Suddenly there was a gasp behind them. They all whipped around to find a very pale Minerva McGonagall.

"A...Albus, Why is S...Sirius Black in you office?" she shakily pointed at the fugitive.

"Minerva," Dumbledore said urgently, walking quickly to close the door behind the startled woman, "Sirius is innocent; he did not betray the Potters. He did not kill Peter Pettigrew and all those muggles that day."

She gaped at the headmaster in disbelief.

"Professor, Sirius is innocent!" Harry added in, "He is my Godfather and we've been in contact with each other since the end of my third year."

"I...I'm...I don't believe this! I mean th...there were witnesses. Minister Fudge himself got there just after it happened...." She trailed off and gripped her wand in her hand as Sirius stood and approached her.

He put his hands in front of him to show he meant no harm. "Professor McGonagall, I swear to you, I have never served Voldemort (she flinched at the name). James was my best friend, we were closer than that, we were brothers! I did not betray him and Lily," Sirius said fervently.

"Then what did happen?" the witch asked lowering her wand a fraction of an inch.

They quickly told her about the switch in secret keepers and what really happened that day on the street in London.

"Who else knows?" she finally asked, dropping her wand arm down to her side.

"All of us here, Arabella, Remus, Severus, Mundungus, and the Weasleys."

It seemed that the mention of Severus believing the story convinced Minerva and she had her wand hidden once again in her pocket by the time Dumbledore finished his list.

"Alright, I believe you. I still don't understand though how he got here without being noticed."

Sirius grinned at his old transfiguration teacher and transformed into Snuffles. McGonagall's eyes bugged out, "That's the dog you had me lead up to your office last year, and that has been hanging around the grounds all this year!"

"Yes," Dumbledore said, "an illegal animagus. There were three, James Sirius and Peter accomplished it in their fifth year."

Sirius turned back into himself and looked to the three students who were still present. "Ron, Harry, Hermione, thanks for your help. You can return to whatever you were doing (Harry grinned at Ron and Hermione). I'll see you later Harry."

Over the next few weeks Harry tried his best to show Arabella, Sirius, and Dumbledore that he could follow rules when not pressed to do otherwise. In classes he worked extra hard. All of his teachers, except for Snape, allowed him to make up the work he had missed.

Outside of class Ron and Hermione wanted to be alone together a considerable amount of time and so Harry found himself more and more in the company of Neville (to whom he never let on that he knew about his parents) and Ginny (who he noticed was growing up and didn't seem to be just Ron's little sister any more).

Before anyone knew it, it was Christmas break. Unlike the previous year, most children went home for the holiday. Ron and Hermione stayed with Harry. Ginny and the twins also stayed because their parents were doing some holiday traveling to where Charlie's job had been relocated: Manchuria. The Gryffindor's had the most students staying at the castle; of the 12 total students there, Gryffindor represented half.

Harry awoke Christmas morning excited when he saw the stack of gifts at the foot of his bed. He carried them all downstairs and joined the four Weasleys and Hermione.

They spent the morning hours opening gifts. Harry received a Chudley Cannons hat from Ron and a book entitled The Seeker's Secrets from Hermione. To his surprise Ginny gave him a gift, which made him very glad he had gotten her one. She gave him a watch to replace the one that had been ruined after it had been underwater an hour during the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. It was a waterproof watch.

Mrs. Weasley gave him the customary goodies and hand-knitted sweater. Fred and George gave him a gift in front of everyone: a sample box of Weasley Wizard Wheezes, but in private gave him a legal document that named him a silent business partner and gave him one-third ownership of Weasley Wizard Wheezes, Inc.

From Sirius he received the most wonderful gift he had gotten since Hagrid gave him the photo album in his first year. It was a book full of memories of his parents compiled by Sirius from different sources including their old teachers, friends and co-workers (which left Harry wondering what exactly his parents had done for a living.)

Arabella gave him a locket that had belonged to his mother. Remus sent a note, wishing him Merry Christmas and apologizing that he couldn't send a gift. Hagrid gave him figurine miniature of a Blast-Ended Skrewt, a gift that sent everyone into helpless giggles for twenty minutes.

After lunch they all went outside and had a major snowball fight, in which everyone got pelted, no one stayed dry, and no one, ultimately, won. (Fred and George, however, stated that their "homing snowballs" had enabled them to beat everyone else, after which Hermione used her wand to dump an avalanche on them.)

That night at dinner the feast was scrumptious. All the students had been invited to join the teachers at the head table.

Fred and George were teasing Ginny and Ron was laughing while he told a third year Hufflepuff about Fred and George's latest invention, the Chameleon Chew, which turned your skin whatever color was most prevalent in your surroundings at the moment (Harry had had the pleasure of being the guinea pig for that one and had spent two hours in the common room, bright red).

Without warning Harry's scar burned with pain. He sucked in sharply, but then it was gone, as suddenly as it had started.

"Harry, did you say something?" Hermione asked, pausing in her conversation with a seventh year Ravenclaw.

"No," Harry answered, figuring it must have been nothing.

Severus Snape left the meal at that moment, but Harry was already in conversation with Ron and didn't notice. After dinner they all retired to the Common Room where they played Exploding Snap and then had a Chess tournament (Ron beat everybody).

Fred and George handed out sweets, which everybody tried, with some hesitancy.

Ginny ate a Licorice Language stick and ended up speaking German for ten minutes. Harry was given an Exploding Éclair, which allowed him to breath fire for a few seconds. Hermione got a Be-Happy Lollipop, which actually made her quite hyper because the cheering charm on it was a bit overdone. Ron, however, ate an animal cookie and turned into a llama for a minute or two.

After they had laughed themselves to exhaustion they gathered their gifts together and went to their rooms and went to bed to sleep for a very long time.

"Are you ready to become a Death Eater, and join my forces?" Voldemort asked. Harry's scar ached dully as he looked around and found himself in a fairly large room, but there were only three people present: Voldemort and two hooded figures. The taller one pushed the other one forward.

He lifted his sleeve and stuck out his left arm. "Yes, My Lord," Harry started as he recognized the voice of Draco Malfoy. What surprised him though was that the boy sounded afraid.

Voldemort touched his wand to Draco's flesh just below his elbow and whispered some words that Harry couldn't catch, except for the last one, which was "Morsmordre."

What looked like black ink started pouring out, forming itself into the Dark Mark on Draco's arm. Voldemort removed his wand.

The Dark Mark glistened momentarily, then it started to...melt, was the only way to describe it. Then it started spreading, looking like cracks along a fault line. The blackness followed the veins, up and down the arm.

As soon as it started melting, Draco started to scream. Voldemort waved his wand, no more sound could be heard, but Harry's scar was no longer dully aching, it burned. He tried to ignore it so he could concentrate on the dream.

"Lucius," Voldemort said coldly, "you said he was completely devoted to me. Your son, however, has proven himself a weak traitor and has refused to join my service. I have no more use of him." Voldemort walked to the door, followed by Lucius, who didn't even look back at his son who was now writhing on the floor as the black spread up his neck and to his face.

"He'll be dead and decayed by morning," Voldemort said cruelly as he left. Harry ran and followed them out the door; he glanced around taking in as much as possible, and then woke himself up.

He muttered the charm to keep the dream in his head and then jumped out of bed. He jammed his glasses in his head and glanced at his clock; it was 1:26.

He had to tell Dumbledore now.

He left the room as quickly as possible, trying not to disturb Ron. Then he ran down the halls toward Dumbledore's office.

He turned a corner and ran smack into someone. He staggered and fell backwards onto the floor.

"Mr. Potter, up in the middle of the night? Curfew still applies over the break, you know," said the unpleasant voice of Severus Snape. Harry hurriedly got to his feet, cursing the fact the Dumbledore had confiscated his Invisibility Cloak.

"Well, well, well, I believe I shall take one hundred points off of Gryffindor," the potions master said with a gleefully malicious glint in his eyes, "and we shall see about your expulsion in the morning."

"I have to see Professor Dumbledore!" Harry said.

"Mr. Potter, I suggest you return to you room, now." Snape's eyes narrowed.

"I have to talk to Dumbledore!" Harry insisted again.

"It can wait until morning!" snapped the irritated man.

"No, it can't!" Harry said desperately.

Snape's patience snapped, he pointed his wand at Harry and said "Mobiliarbus." And Harry floated off the ground.

Not really caring what Snape was doing at the moment, Harry, in a last ditch attempt to contact Dumbledore, thought of something.

Grandma! He screamed in his head.

Harry? My goodness, what's wrong? His grandmother's voice answered almost instantly, to his relief.

Wake up Dumbledore, please, now! Can you make him hear me?

There was silence for a few moments and then the feeling of the connection with his grandmother changed slightly.

Harry? What's the problem? Dumbledore's voice said.

Harry shoved the images from the dream in its entirety through the link to Dumbledore.

Oh my! Was all the Headmaster said and then he was no longer there.

Harry relaxed; he had done his job. He turned his attention back to his present situation. Snape had not taken him back to Gryffindor; he had taken Harry to a door he had never even noticed.

Snape knocked.

No answer.

He knocked again.

Still no answer.

He banged on the door a third time.

Finally the door opened to reveal a very upset Minerva McGonagall.

"Severus," she demanded, "what is the meaning of this? Waking me up at..." she trailed off as she saw Harry.

"Mr. Potter was out of bed. I found him. I took one hundred points from Gryffindor. He's in your house, what are you going to do with him?"

McGonagall's face went red. A student out of bed was not a good thing; Snape finding him was ten times worse.

"I'm going to ask him to explain himself," McGonagall said harshly as Snape ended the spell he had used to guide Harry there.

They all entered McGonagall's sitting room. Harry glanced around and saw, to his surprise, Snuffles stretched in front of the fireplace, sound asleep.

McGonagall, agitated, waved her wand and the room instantly lit. Snuffles stirred and woke up. Seeing who was in the room, he quickly transformed.

Severus looked at him with a look of pure hatred.

"What's going on here?" he asked moving closer.

"I found Mr. Potter out of bed. I have brought him to his head of house to be dealt with," the potion master sneered.

To Snape's surprise Sirius looked upset. "Harry?" he asked sharply.

"Explain yourself," demanded McGonagall.

"I had a dream," immediately Sirius understood, but apparently the two professors didn't, Harry continued, "I needed to tell Dumbledore about it."

"Why would the Headmaster care about a nightmare you had?" Snape said acidly.

Harry, go wake up Arabella, bring her to the infirmary. Tell her to get Severus too. Dumbledore said urgently in his head.

"I have to go get Professor Figg!" Harry said.

"What?" Professors McGonagall and Snape asked simultaneously.

"Why?" added Sirius.

"Dumbledore told me to! Professor Snape, he wants you in the infirmary and he wants me to bring Arabella."

The two professors looked at him like he was absolutely insane. Harry took the opportunity to leave.

"Harry Potter!" screeched Professor McGonagall, moving to follow him.

"Minerva, " Sirius said moving in front of her, "do you recall what Albus told you about Harry's dreams? His dreams of Voldemort?"

Understanding dawned on both Severus' and Minerva's faces. Severus rushed out, heading for the infirmary.