Harry Potter and the Wizards of Narhassa

Chapter 6: Rude Awakening

Harry's eyes fluttered slightly and finally opened.

"Ugh," said Harry as he rubbed his face wearily, trying to free himself of the dull throbbing behind his eyes. Something had rudely awakened him from a deep sleep.

Calmly reaching over for his glasses, Harry pushed his black hair out of his face and sat up in his very large four posture bed.

Something is wrong.

With an air of suspicion, Harry pushed open the curtain to his bed and slipped off of the mattress. It took a moment for his eyes to get adjusted to the dark. The silhouettes of the five other beds in the room could be distinguished in the pale glow of the moon as it cast a gloomily light through the window. As Harry found a pair of socks and pulled them on over his feet, the shadows began to shorten and the room adjusted to his eyes more clearly. Four of the five beds were undisturbed, with curtains pulled tight and rhythmic snoring and breathing sound from behind each of them. Yet, one of the beds had Harry's undivided attention. The curtains were parted and the comforter was thrown back and disheveled, showing clearly that no person lay asleep within its folds.

Sean... thought Harry.

Normally, it was not Harry's place to be suspicious over an empty bed in Gryffindor tower. Often students could not sleep and went into the common room, or were using the bathroom. Yet, even had he seen Sean's form within the bed, he could not shake the feel something evil was in the air. His gut feelings had kept him alive for four years, as forces have tried to defeat and kill him. Now, he was in no position to deny the cold, clammy hand he could feel on the back of his neck, telling him something was wrong.

With small steps, Harry left the dorm all fifth year Gryffindor boys shared and, dressed only in his pajamas, made his way down the winding, maroon carpeted stairs and into the common room.

At first glance, nothing seemed out of place. The furniture was all cleaned and undisturbed, the tables were empty as no one was studying at this time of night, and the fire flickered warmly about, casting wild shadows around the room.

Sean stood in front of the dull flames, staring down unwaveringly. His back was to Harry and his shoulders seemed slumped with fatigue. This both alarmed Harry and intrigued him all at once. Taking a few bold steps forward, Harry called out to him.

"Sean?" asked Harry in a soft voice, not wishing to alarm anyone.

Sean did not respond as he stared before the flames. Harry took a few more steps across the room nearly halfway to the small, red-haired boy.

"Sean?" repeated Harry. "Are you feeling well?"

The only reply Harry received was a hiss from the fire. Drawing to within touching distance, Harry spoke softly. "What are you looking at?"

Sean's form was surrounded by an orange highlight as the glow of the fire reflected off of his skin. Harry could hear him breathing deeply, drawing air in rhythmically... yet twice as slow as normal. It was a nasty sound, a sharp intake, and five seconds later, a violent expulsion.

It reminded Harry of someone breathing with a mask on.

"Why aren't you talking to me?" asked Harry, putting his hand on his shoulder.

Suddenly, Sean grabbed Harry's hand and whirled around. Sean's hand upon Harry's felt like ice, like the driving of a dagger through his palm. The stunned boy's arm shuttered and spasmed involuntarily in attempts to free itself, but Sean's grip was like iron.

Harry's breath came to him like dragon's smoke as the air about him thickened and became as frigid as a winter night.

"The Dark Lord is coming, Harry," said Sean, in a voice so alien and deep that it reminded him of one of Professor Trelawney's predictions. "He's coming for you."

Harry furiously tried to pull away. His looked definitely into Sean's eyes and suddenly gasped with horror.

His emerald green eyes had turned blood red.

"The Dark Times are ahead, and you cannot run. You cannot hide. All there will be is death, destruction and strife. His army has already begun to take form. When we are ready, the moon will bleed and the seas will freeze. The stars will fall and the ground will rise. The Earth itself will quake in fear..."

Harry felt tears of panic and pain clouding his vision as well as Sean's mild expression. His eyes, bulging crimson eyes, stared demonically at Harry, while his tongue slowly crept out of his mouth, forked like a snake. The face Harry had so willingly trusted melted away with bubbling flesh, like some sort of fluid.

Leaving only a skull.

"... for even the Earth itself knows that nothing and no one can save it."

That was all Harry remembered before he fainted due to the crystallizing pain in his hand.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Harry released the most agonized and horrified scream he was capable of. It was so loud and so reverberating that he heard about two forms crash out of their beds in the dark. With a leap that nearly took down the curtains to his bed, Harry leapt off his mattress in a surrealistic stupor. Sean, apparently, had done the same thing and crashed headlong into Harry. Harry yelled again, and Sean returned his yell with one of his own. Harry shoved Sean violently out of his face, without conscious thought.

"FUCK ALL!" shouted the voice of Ron Weasley as the curtains to his bed flew asunder. "What in the name of bloody hell is going on?" he demanded.

The other noises he had heard was those of Seamus Finnegan and Dean Thomas, falling out of bed in a mess of tangled curtains. Even Neville, who seemed to be able to sleep through anything, was unable to survive the sharp screams. He stuck his head out of his curtains, with wide-eyed terror. Neville glanced about, as if looking to find a hidden assailant within the room.

"Is... Is... Sirius back?"

Harry shot a look down to Sean, who he had shoved without even realizing it to the ground. He had made solid connection with the metal frame of his bed, and did not seem to be getting up quickly. Yet, Sean's expression was not one of pain, but of pure fright. The lights to their room flew on as Seamus quickly muttered the spell.

"Lumos!"

Sean's emerald green eyes that so closely matched Harry's were no longer crimson and his breathing had returned to normal. In fact, he was inhaling and exhaling so rapidly that Harry figured his lungs may very well explode.

"Would one of you two kindly bloody explain what is going on?" demanded Ron, looking from Harry to Sean.

The realization that should have hit Harry sooner finally caught up to him.

It was a dream... he realized. It was just a dream...

Harry did not pretend to kid himself. There was nothing "just" about that dream.

It was real. The pain in his hand, the sharp stakes of terror, the voice... it was so unbelievably real. He stared down at his hand with stupefaction, flexing it and clenching it slowly. There was no pain or even oddity about any part of it... it had been completely untouched. It must have been a dream; the most real dream he had ever experienced, barring none.

"Just... just a dream," stammered Sean, still quivering in terror on the ground like a small dog narrowly avoiding an encounter with a speeding eighteen-wheeler.

"What's going on?" asked a voice outside their room as the door flew open. It was Colin Creevey and the other three fourth year boys that Harry did not know well. "We heard a bunch of people screaming!"

Seamus turned to Colin and his friends. "Go back to bed, all of you. The situation is under control."

The other students left tiredly while Colin took another step into the room. "It's Harry, isn't it? Harry, are you alright?"

Seamus stepped in his way, however. "Don't make me take points away from my own house."

"It... it's fine," said Harry, mustering as much control as possible. "Thanks for your concern, Colin... but you aren't helping right now."

Colin swallowed a lump in his throat and nodded weakly. With a quick step, he left the room, looking more than just a bit hurt.

"It was so real," stammered Sean, drawing everyone's attention to him.

"What did you see?" asked Harry, taking a knee next to Sean, trying his best to take his mind off his own dream.

Sean shook his head. "It was weird... I don't understand. I was sitting in a classroom next to Alex and... your girlfriend."

Harry's brow arched. "Jessica?"

Sean nodded. "It was huge classroom; simply massive. There were like over five-hundred people... a thousand... ten thousand maybe... it was so large..."

Seamus knelt down on the other side of Sean. "Breathe buddy, breathe."

Sean paused to take a few deep breaths before continuing. "The class was being taught by... it was so horrible..."

Harry grabbed Sean's shoulder very painfully, squeezing with fearsome angst. "Who was teaching it?"

"Something horrible..." Sean said. "I... I'd need to be a poet to describe how awful it looked... we were all sitting behind desks... it was... talking with unstaring...

"Breathe!" exclaimed Seamus, interrupting him.

Sean took another sharp inhalation, driving shivers down Harry's spine as the sound reminded him of his own terror.

"Pupiless, blood red eyes... it told me... it told me to..."

"Told you to what?" demanded Harry firmly.

A tear rolled down Sean's cheek as a result of perhaps many factors: the pain from Harry's nasty shove, the complete and utter terror or a tension so thick that he could choke on it.

"Prepare for the dark times," he whimpered, his voice barely above a whisper. "It... it told us our purposes in life... it was... so horrible. So real..."

"What purpose?" asked Ron, his hands at his hips.

"I don't know," murmured Sean. "Something about it didn't seem right... I... something possessed me... I stood up to leave the classroom before he finished explaining... it was so large... the thing wouldn't notice me gone... it stopped speaking and asked me where I was going..."

Sean shivered involuntarily.

"Keep talking," said Harry gently.

The red-haired boy nodded feebly. "I said... I was going... I wasn't interested in learning... I felt sick..."

Everyone remained silent as Sean took a pause to steady himself.

"The creature called me... called me a traitor. It said it would give a chance to change my mind... and... and... told me that "this is a sign of things to come if you do not reconsider"... and then it held out his hand and said... um... I don't remember, but, it felt... felt like daggers all over my body. I wanted death; I begged for it..."

"Crucio," said Neville very darkly, filling in the gap in the story. "The Cruciatus Curse."

"Alex and Jessica watched; they didn't help... they just watched. And... and then, I woke up," he said. "And the first thing I saw was Harry's face."

Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville, in one synchronized motion, looked from Sean's crumpled form to Harry. Harry was lost in shock, though managed to keep a small semblance of order to his mind.

"This creature..." continued Harry. "Did it have long, dangling fingers?"

Sean nodded.

"Grey skin, hairless head?"

Sean nodded.

"And when it spoke, did it sound like a snake hissing."

Sean shook his head. "Worse. I reckon if the dead could speak, it would sound like him."

Harry's expression became vacant. "Voldemort..."

Seamus sighed, standing up. "Look Harry, I don't mean to be apathetic... I really don't... but we are all having dreams about You-Know-Who. How can we get sleep, though, if you keep screaming about..."

"Bloody hell, Seamus!" snapped Harry. "You don't find this shifty at all? First, Tom Marvolo Riddle infiltrates the school and now, me and Sean BOTH have the most terrifying nightmares of our lives at exactly the same time!"

Seamus apparently wasn't too keen on who Tom Riddle really was. His vacant expression said it all. Ron looked at Harry not with Seamus' firmness, but with brotherly concern. "Harry, are you sure you are all right?"

"No!" growled Harry. "I'm not bloody well sure that I am all right! I had a dream where Voldemort told me that the stars will bleed... the Earth will fall... or something... and then... and he mentioned something about an army!"

Harry intentionally hid the fact that it was not Voldemort, but Sean who had spoken these words. It was likely Voldemort trying to get under his skin. To mention that the messenger was Sean, after hearing about the other boy's own nightmare, would be isolating him in a way he did not deserve.

"Harry," said Ron, grasping his shoulders and speaking firmly. "You are babbling."

Harry shook his head childishly. "No... I'm not."

"Think about it," offered Dean, trying to be helpful. "Why would You-Know-Who send you a dream and tell you everything that he is going to do?"

With a failing template of sanity, Harry stood up. "You don't know him the way I do, Dean. A failed Killing Curse does not bind you to him irrevocably. You are not responsible for his fall from grace... and..."

Harry trailed off for a moment as his eyes lowered.

"... you aren't responsible for his second coming. He wants me with him every step of the way."

Ron grabbed Harry's chin forcefully, jerking his head back level with him. "I ought to box you silly, Harry."

This caught Harry off guard.

"You think for one moment you are responsible for You-Know-Who's return and Cedric's Death?" demanded Ron, releasing Harry's face.

Harry felt at a loss for words.

"As your best friend, it is my job to inform you of something."

The boy stared at Ron blankly.

"There is a thin line you've been walking on for the past few months. On one side of this line is remorse and the other is nihilism... and tonight, you just took a nosedive into the latter."

Seamus looked to Ron, with a stunned expression. "Wow... that was lovely."

"Thank you," said Ron, not looking at Seamus.

Harry sighed and backed away from Ron. "You think I am giving myself nightmares as a way to show my pain?"

"Well..." said Ron, trailing off for a moment. "Yes. I do."

Harry glared at Ron coldly. "You didn't believe me when I pointed out Tom Riddle last night. Now, you don't believe me when Sean and I both have horrible dreams about the Dark Lord. Does "denial" have to properly drop trough and moon you before you'll accept the fact that Voldemort is alive and well?

"DON'T SAY HIS NAME!" shouted Ron with just as much anger.

Harry's verbal riposte was stowed for a moment as Sean slowly rose to his knees and spoke in a shy voice. "It's ok, Harry. I believe you."

Harry looked down at Sean, who looked so utterly alone and terrified. It occurred to him how much harder this must be for him. If Sean's dream was as extreme as Harry's was, he could only imagine what it would be like to have to suffer it alone... in the midst of all but total strangers. Ron, Seamus, Dean and Neville were all there to comfort Harry, but Sean had no one. Yet, Sean, if anything, was handling it better than Harry.

Yes, thought Harry at last. Gryffindor was the right place for him.

"Thanks," said Harry, looking down to Sean. "It's nice when people you don't know well give you their trust... and your best friend doesn't."

Ron bit his lip angrily, and without another word, marched back toward his bed and drew the curtains tight.

"I am going to sleep on the sofa," said Seamus resignedly. "Too much drama here."

With that, Seamus left the dorm room, followed quickly by Dean Thomas. Neville simply pulled his head back within his curtains like a turtle, leaving Harry standing agape and Sean lying upon the ground where Harry had pushed him, making no effort to get up.

Harry extended his hand to Sean, who grasped it without hesitation and pulled himself up.

"Sorry about pushing you like that," said Harry. "I was a wee bit finicky."

Sean rubbed the side of his head a bit. "That's fine... my head broke my fall."

Harry winced slightly. "Look, Sean..." began Harry.

With a wave of his hand, Sean smiled with a bittersweet expression. "Thanks, Harry. I'll be here for you too, man."

The words choked in Harry's mouth. "What?"

Sean's remaining tension seemed to finally dissolve as his smile seemed less force. "You were going to ask me if I ever needed to talk to anyone about anything, you'd be there for me. If you need someone as well, I'll be here for you too."

Harry scratched his chin. "I suppose I was going to say something on those lines... how did you know that?"

Sean sat down on his bed softly, folding his hands on his lap. "I just know what people are thinking based on how they say things..."

"Oh?" asked Harry, a bit curious. He lowered his voice out of consideration for his roommates. "Explain."

"I... guess it's just that, when most people are talking, I tend to listen," said Sean quietly, with a half-hearted shrug. "Words only say half the story. When you listen for as long as I have... you get to the point where you understand what people are trying to say even if the words haven't come out yet."

Harry sat down on his own bed, listening to Sean with interest.

"Have you listened longer than others?"

Sean nodded, with a sad expression on his face. "I've been forced to. For my entire life... I was mute."

Harry's eyes widened with intrigue. "Huh?"

"For all but the last few months of my life, I've been unable to speak," he said softly. "Yet, at the end of last spring... I woke up one day, and said "Good morning," to my mother... using words instead of sign language. It was the first time I had ever heard my own voice."
This caused Harry to lapse into stunned silence.

Sean's eyes twinkled slightly. "That was what she said. I don't know how it came about, but Alex also found himself with unique abilities as well. He's my first cousin, see..."
"Anyway," continued Sean. "We then began to understand some things. We had both been given a gift beyond our understanding and had become more than normal humans. No normal human could lift objects in the air by desiring it... we could make things happen... it was exhilarating."
Harry smiled slightly. "I know the feeling."

"We each received a letter from Mr. Dumbledore over the summer, asking us if we would like to attend a few classes at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to help us better understand our gift. Alex and I thought it would be interesting, and decided to accept."

A feeling of warm respect washed over Harry's body as he saw Sean in the still lit-up room, his smile seeming to drain years out of his life. It almost seemed to Harry like Sean was exactly who Ron was during his first year of Hogwarts. The other red-haired boy had been naïve, yet extremely kind and considerate of other people. Ron had a quality when he was younger, a sort of wide-eyed charm that had won Hermione and him over. Everything that had gone on around Ron was, according to him, "wicked," as if he constantly experienced the world for the first time. Lately, however, Ron had seemed to be on edge about everything. Nothing seemed "cool" or "wicked" with him anymore. He had noticed it for the first time when he had confronted Malfoy in Diagon Alley. In place of Ron's usual hotheaded, passionate anger with Malfoy in the past, his face had been so grave and cold. He had not wanted to hurt Malfoy, or he would have just hit him with a hex. No, that time, Ron wanted to prove he was the better man and make Malfoy sweat.

It had stunned Harry in a way he had not even realized at the time.

Sean possessed and even exemplified the qualities he liked most about a younger Ron: passion, expression... and wide-eyed curiosity about the world around him. It was safe to say that Harry had liked Sean from the start, but after this conversation, despite only knowing him for two days, he knew the small boy was soon going to become a fast friend.

Harry nodded and smiled. "It was a good choice. I hope you like it here."

"I think I will," said Sean, without much hesitation. "Everyone in this house seems really nice..."

Harry's reply was cut off by Ron's voice from behind his maroon curtains. "Will you two shut-up! I'm trying to sleep!"

"... when they aren't trying to sleep, that is," Sean awkwardly put in.

For the first time since he woke up, Harry smiled fully. "Good morrow, Sean. Lumos!"

Sean nodded and kicked his legs up onto his bed just as the lights in the room extinguished, plunging them all into darkness.