Locus in Divum

Scientists and wizards alike study them.

Dreams.

When a person closes their eyes, their mind enters a strange and fantastic state. Their eyes are shuttered tightly against the stimuli of the outside world; the brain is deluged with thousands of images that are not there. Many dreams can take place under the blindfold of sleep, but the dreamer may remember only one, or wake up not knowing what the adventures or horrors they lived the night before. Some dreams occur over and over again, expressions of the unconscious portion of the mind.

Many meanings can be read into dreams. People claim to have seen everything nonsensical apparitions to whole past lives in their dreams. Dreams can be pleasant, prophetic, eerie and unsettling, or they can be so different from the dreamer's waking life that they are impossible to decipher.

Dreams are distortions of self, but also glimpses into the soul.

~~~    

    Harry Potter had no sooner fallen asleep than the dream began.

He was no stranger to bizarre dreams, but this one was different, rooted in his heart by emotions that now felt alien. His memories served only to remind of him how nothing had really changed. Harry knew like an old friend this truth: the fight goes on, long after the original warriors are dust.

He was walking, endlessly, up thousands of dark stairs to what was waiting for him above. The stairs he climbed glittered like a great black ocean. His feet knew the way, as Harry had had this dream often for the past twelve years, though recently it had been asserting itself more than usual.

And, as always, the music played- in his head, though. He wondered if that was a herald of madness, to hear the tinkling melody of the silver music box. The sound was both eerie and sad, lost to all except Harry and maybe Ginny, who might recognise it if he sung it to her.

His feet had a mind of their own, carrying Harry upwards until the stairs were icy and finally lifted themselves right off the thick castle walls and spiraled endlessly into the grey-blue winter sky. The cold stole his breath away, even after all these years. The snow and ice on the stairs were making Harry's feet slip. Even though he was now at least a mile above the ground, he had no fear. He had done this far too often to be afraid. And as he was walking, he knew it was just the dream.

He walked slowly and steadily, for he knew what he would find at his destination. Even if Harry hadn't known what he would find there, he wouldn't have raced upwards, for his old sense of adventure had dimmed quite a bit. The stairs reverted from icy and magically-conjured to their original rough wooden state.

The last few wooden steps led to a kind of solid, flat plane that someone could stand on, which had been nestled among the very highest treetops of the Forbidden Forest. The white clouds above gave the illusion of warmth. This high, Harry felt the sky was close enough to touch. The plane itself was the same color as the clouds and shimmered like tears.

He had been forced to go to church with the Dursleys once every year, on Christmas Eve. In between listening to Dudley whine or play with his handheld computer game, Harry had heard heaven was described as a place in the sky, and that there was a stairway one could use to get to heaven. This was what Harry envisioned as the Place in the Sky, and the magical stairs were the Stairway to Heaven. And yet... in this ethereal place, murder had been committed.

He stood at the front end of the plane, and bowed to a duelling partner who wasn't there.

The wind sighed for Harry, and the mist cried for him, soft and wet. He walked on.

What happened next he'd never done in real life, but it always happened in the dream. On the other side of the plane, the branches of the evergreens formed another stairway for Harry. He took the offered branches of an ancient yew tree and climbed down it. The battered wood of the tree seemed to comfort him, speaking wordlessly, the weight of centuries behind its soundless voice.

And then... the place in the sky disappeared from behind Harry, and the tree deposited him gently onto a dirt road. Harry turned around to say goodbye to the tree, but it had vanished. The icy familiarity of the early stages of the dream was gone. The only escape from what was coming was to try to wake up, but the dream often very easily outwitted Harry's attempts to end it. It refused to relinquish its grip on him until someone else roused him or the dream had concluded.

He followed the road he had taken so many times, and waited, mute and immobile, for the next thing to happen. He turned his head slightly to look at a building by the edge of the road. The building was grey stone, and one of the most depressing places Harry had ever seen. The windows were coated with grit. A sign creaked from its postion at the front of the dingy porch. The sign read "Little Hangleton Home for Orphaned Boys".

Both the chipped navy blue door of the Little Hangleton Home for Orphaned Boys and the battered screen door in front of it opened. A woman who wore a thirties nurse uniform walked out, looking anxious, and spotted Harry in the road.

"Oh!" she called to him. "Are you the doctor I sent for?"

Never once yet had Harry denied being the doctor. Never mind that he hadn't the slightest experience in either Muggle Doctoring or Wizard Healing. He nodded silently in response, paralyzed by his own inability to deny it.

"Oh, thank the heavens," she said, motioning him closer. "He's getting worse," she confessed to him, her voice low, as she led him through the orphanage door.

The air inside the orphanage was stale and smelled like vomit and the sweat of the eighteen young boys who lived there. The door clanged shut behind Harry and the nurse, reminding him uncomfortably of a prison. Yes, that's what it was like. Harry surveyed the lobby distastefully. A prison with very low ceilings and lumpy brown furniture.

The nurse led Harry forcefully upstairs. The second floor was nothing but boys' rooms, but it was quieter than one would assume a building full of young boys to be. Each door had a window to the rooms, which were generally neat and no more spacious than a broom cupboard. The windows facing out of the building were thrown wide open in spite of the cold, most likely in an attempt on the boys' part to cleanse the air of its horrible "orphanage" taint. The boys themselves, from what Harry could see, were mostly scruffy and skinny, but absorbed in their homework in the late afternoon. In one room, a group of older boys crowded around a small radio, but it was the only noise in that floor.

"They're so well-behaved," Harry said sadly, knowing what the unsettling response to that statement would be.

"I expect the owner, Mr. Burns, keeps them in line," the nurse replied. Harry didn't have too much time to ruminate on what that might mean. They had arrived at a door at the end of a narrow hallway. The nurse pressed a finger to her lips and opened it. She nodded at Harry and pointed to a doctor's kit on the floor, then left him. Harry was glad of her thoughtfulness, but truly, there was nothing he could do with those instruments.

In the room, there was a small bookshelf that literally overflowed with books. They spilled onto the floor, jumbled together with schoolbooks and work printed on torn pages in a neat handwriting. There was a flickering lamp next to a small bed that had ragged sheets and a blanket thrown haphazardly over it. Underneath the covers lay a boy. His dark, curly hair was dull, his cheeks gaunt and colorless. His breath came in short rasps. And he was so small and bony for such a young child. Harry's heart stilled and broke at the sight of him.

"Tom," he whispered, feeling stirrings of a long-ago connection.

Harry pressed his hand to the boy's cold cheek. His hands were like fire; they breathed life into the boy, who stirred and opened his eyes. They were black as night and smooth and glassy, like one who is near death.

"I knew you'd be here. The nurse told me," he said simply in his soft voice.

"I'm here," Harry said, equally as soft.

"You can't do anything, though," the boy said sadly. Harry shook his head, and the boy looked at Harry with something like trust. For a second, all his small face white face showed was his frustration, pain, and deep sorrow, so deep it was burned into Harry's memory forever. Then the emotions were masked, with the skill of someone much older.

"I'm Harry Potter," said Harry. This was part of their act. They really knew each other very well.

"Tom Riddle," said the boy, also acting. "If you're not my doctor, then who are you?"

Harry thought. They were enemies, but this dying boy didn't need to know that. "I'm your... friend," he said awkwardly. The word felt strange.

"You're lying," Tom said, looking Harry in the eyes. It wasn't said bitterly, or with anger. Just a statement.

Silence. Then the boy changed tack. "Will I die?"

"Yes," said Harry, "but not tonight."

"Why does it matter when it happens?" asked the boy. "It's the same thing. Someone dies and is never seen or heard or loved again, ever."

"You were never loved in the first place," said Harry, knowing it to be true.

"Maybe not. But love is a myth."

"It's not. I loved my parents... and yet I never knew them."

"I hate my father."

"That's a harsh thing to say."

"But it's the truth."

Harry was always saddened when he heard that, because he knew all was lost for this boy. He was only about seven years old, and already he had learned to hate. "Have you ever loved anyone?" he asked.

"I don't know. Probably not."

"I thought you said love was a myth."

"It is. For me."

Harry suddenly felt very tired. He didn't have a reply to that, but he had to keep the conversation going.

"You're exaggerating."

"I'm not. You never knew your parents. So maybe you never loved them either."

"I loved Sirius. He was my godfather. And I loved my parents. I know I did."

Harry felt the need to keep going, to pour out his sorrow, and give voice to the nameless depths of all the losses he'd experienced.

"I loved Dumbledore. He died in the last siege, in March. And Mrs. Weasley. She was like a mother to me. The Weasleys were never the same after Avery killed her in my seventh year. And... and even Snape, he was good in the end." Harry's throat went dry. Speaking the names of the dead had robbed him of his voice. The grief overwhelmed him. His face was anguished, and sobs threatened to come. Even now, twelve years later, victorous and having taken his revenge, these deaths could never, never be healed. The wounds were opened once more at seeing this sickly child. Death wouldn't come to Tom at this age. The unfairness of that! This child, who would grow up and be a murderer would be spared, and his victims, wonderful, righteous, strong, good, brave people, would have their lives cut short as a result until Harry could find a way to stop the monster that was Lord Voldemort.

Harry put his head in his hands, vowing not to show any of the emotion that was roaring through him. Grief, in the form of tears, knocked at his eyes as though they were doors to be opened.

Tom was looking at him in fascination. Grief over the loss of a loved one was likely an emotion quite alien to him. "I'm sorry," he said.

This attempt at sympathy angered Harry more than anything else Tom could have done. Before he knew it, he was shouting. "You're sorry? Then don't do it! Die right now, for all I care! It's all your fault!"

"Kill me now then," Tom said calmly. " As I said earlier, it makes no difference."

Harry stared at him, breathless, his head spinning. "I can't kill you. You're just a child," he said, defeated. Defeated, because he somehow knew what was about to happen.

They sat in silence.

"I can't help you, Tom. I can't stop you soon enough to make a difference," Harry finally said softly. "Just, please," he said, even more quietly, begging. "Don't take their lives." Tom studied Harry, as if his next words were written all over Harry for him to read. Finally his gaze settled on Harry's scar.

"I cannot change anything," said the boy. "It's already been done."

"It was what had to be done," Tom added when Harry said nothing.

Harry tensed. "Death is never 'what has to be done,'" he said flatly, his voice dangerously low.

"Yes, it sometimes is. There are things people die for, Harry."

"They didn't have to die! You took them from me! It was before their time!"

"You think you can stop me?" Tom yelled, the loudest Harry had ever heard the boy.

"No," said Harry coldly.

"But you can kill me now."

Harry paused.

"Kill me, Harry. I don't really want to be a murderer!" Tom said defiantly. "But I've already become one. And who is to say those deaths weren't necessary?"

"Necessary! All the lives, Tom! For what?"

"You're of the Light; you are incapable of separating your logic from your feelings," Tom spat bitterly. "How could you ever understand the reasons behind my actions? I can't explain it to you."

"Try."

In the silence, horror unfolded. Tom pulled a knife from his bedstand drawer and showed the gleaming blade to Harry. "You've done this before, Harry. Maybe it'll be easier this time."

Harry was frozen. "Don't," he whispered.

"Fine. You want to know why I killed everyone? My own revenge on the world for making me this. A monster. Do you know what I am, what I will become?"

The boy even hated himself. Harry could see the loathing and despair in his gleaming eyes.

"My crimes were also committed for the sake of magical advancement!" the boy said. "Dirty blood is drowning magic. I always considered it an honour to help thin the Mudblood herd." Tom smiled a little at that. Harry was disgusted.

The boy continued, "So many things can be done with magic after you've killed someone! Don't you understand? Immortality is worth everything. If you have to kill a few people to make one person immortal, isn't that worth it?"

Harry's heart was hammering in his chest. He looked into Tom's black eyes, and saw no hope for him. In one swift moment, he reached for the knife. Tom, still very much a young boy, lept off the bed and screamed. "You're not really going to...."

"Stop talking," Harry said directly, his voice devoid of emotion.

"Just do it," Tom said, deadly serious, and yet trembling. Trembling with what, though? Anger, grief, fear? What was it?

"Do it now," the boy hissed, not sounding like any little boy should. Then emotion came back into his eyes like stormclouds rolling across a blank sky: fury and resentment, fuelled by an unending pain.

Harry stood, on the edge of sin and death, rocking, staring at the knife Tom had dropped onto the bed.

He gasped.

It was the penknife that Sirius, Sirius!, who was now dead and would never give Harry anything again, had given to him in his fourth year. The year before the veil had caught him and stolen him forever from Harry, who was left to mourn for a godfather-sized hole in his heart. That hole would never be filled. He'd lain awake each night for the next year, thinking. Despite everyone's assurances that death was senseless and that there wasn't any real reason why someone should be taken away, Harry had pushed those feeble, meaningless words away. Only then had he realised the truth about the cause of his godfather's: Voldemort. It was all his fault.

Tom stared back at Harry with hard, unfeeling eyes.

Harry lunged for the knife.

Tom raced around the room. Harry, like a madman, was pursuing him, looking for an opportunity when the boy would drop his hands, held protectively in front of his body, and provide an opening for Sirius's knife. "Please," Tom moaned, like an animal caught in a trap.

They were by the window now.

Tom pushed it open in one swift moment. He stood by the window, which opened wider and wider as only a dream-window could. The window showed the newly-fallen night and swirling snow. Two stories below was the hard stone area that passed for a playground in this god-forsaken place.

The boy jumped into the snow and night and stone.

"TOM!" Harry yelled, hearing the sickening thud of his small body below.

Harry forgot all about the knife. Oh god, what had happened?

He stormed out of the room and down the stairs. The wooden floors protested loudly at Harry's frantic movements, and yet no one in the dream ever heard him. He threw open the front doors and ran around to the play area, where Tom's lifeless body lay. His black eyes glinted, absorbing everything and nothing, bearing silent witness to the horrible guilt that welled in Harry's heart.

"Oh god, sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't... it was an accident... oh god, what did I do?" Harry muttered feverishly.

The boy's eyes stared accusingly at him.

It didn't matter when someone died, the fact was they were dead, and would never laugh, or cry, or love again.

Harry sobbed, releasing all of his pain to the uncaring ear of night. He collapsed, breathless, saying over and over again to the body, "I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I'm sorry.... " He pulled the boy's cold form to him and the sobs racked his chest so hard he couldn't speak.

So maybe this boy would grow up and be responsible for his parents, and Sirius, and Dumbledore, and Mrs. Weasley, and Snape...

... but Harry would always be responsible for him.

So much death... why?

"Why?" Harry asked the numb silence.

~~

And then Harry was back at the Place in the Sky, bowing to a duelling partner who wasn't there, because Harry had killed him.

Then he woke up.