In Dreams

In Dreams

Prologue

He still had dreams about that place. Every night they came, haunting him until he was scared to do so much as close his eyes, in constant fear of reliving that scene once again.

He had dreamt about the Department of Mysteries for over a year, and the dreams had radically changed in that time. He had spent an entire year desperately running towards locked doors, willing them to open so that he could see what was inside. Now, he was dragged there against his will, his feet moving of their own accord, taking him ever closer to that terrible place. Now, instead of hoping that the doors would open, he prayed that they would remain closed, locked tight against his relentless march forwards.

But they always opened. He had hoped for it for so long, and now that it happened, he just wanted them to close again, so that he could turn and run, never to return.

Except they never closed, and he always returned. Night after night, he went back to that room. The Death Chamber. That was what Dumbledore had called it. It was a suitable name, for all Harry ever saw there was death. He would watch Sirius fall through the veil, time and time again, always powerless to stop it.

No one else knew about his dreams. He had been staying at the Burrow for several days, and he knew that the others had sensed something was wrong. None of them had guessed the truth though, and Harry wanted to keep it that way. Apart from anything else, he knew that if Mrs Weasley found out about his nightmares, she would force him to take a potion for dreamless sleep, and that was the last thing he wanted. No matter how much the dreams disturbed him, or how often he woke up in the middle of the night, shaking and drenched with sweat, full of utter misery over his godfather's death, a small, twisted part of him liked them. In those dreams, no matter how horrible they were, Harry got to see Sirius. If they stopped, he would never see his godfather again.

So he kept them secret, going about day-to-day life at the Burrow as if everything was normal, even though deep down all of them knew that everything had changed. He played Quidditch with the boys, reveling in being able to fly his Firebolt once again. He answered Mrs Weasley's constant queries about his health and wellbeing, and listened to Ron's rants about how unsafe it was for Hermione to be staying at her parents' house without another witch or wizard there to protect her if she was attacked. He had even tested some of Fred and George's new products, although, admittedly, that hadn't been a conscious decision at the time.

He was grateful that he could be there. In the short time he had stayed at the Dursleys', he had had no distractions to keep his mind from brooding, except for the constant list of chores his Aunt gave him to do. Here, there was no opportunity to be bored, with the constant activity and the company of his best friend. He had assumed that once Dumbledore finally let him leave the Dursleys' residence, he would be forced to go to Grimmauld Place, and he was relieved to find that this wasn't the case. It was one thing for the Weasleys to keep him busy in their own home. It would have been quite another for them to keep him from brooding in a place full of memories of his godfather, where every little thing would remind him of what had happened that night, and how, if he had acted differently, he would have been able to prevent it.

No one acted delicately around him. On the contrary, they all seemed to think that the more they maintained the feel of a 'normal stay at the Burrow', the happier Harry would be. It was hard to be in a bad mood when Mrs Weasley was being so cheerful, dumping five sausages onto his plate for breakfast and telling him that he needed feeding up a bit. It was difficult to act seriously when Fred and George were constantly playing tricks on everyone. It was hard to reflect on the past when so much was happening in the present.

But the Weasleys had made one mistake. Certain that Percy was not going to return, and desperate to make Harry a proper member of the family, they had given him Percy's bedroom for his own, telling him that as long as they lived at the Burrow, he was welcome to stay there. Harry appreciated the gesture, but now he was completely alone every night, and had no one to distract him from his dreams, or wake him up if they turned into nightmares. And they always turned into nightmares.

Nightmares about that night. Nightmares about that room. Nightmares about that woman, that murderer who had laughed so carelessly about what she had done. But most of all, nightmares about his godfather.

But Harry had other dreams, ones that didn't involve that room or that veil. They were always so vivid, yet completely senseless, and Harry always forgot the details by morning. All he could remember were dark rooms and heavy veils, and the image of a black snake slithering into a fire and crumbling to ash, before bursting from the flames as a beautiful phoenix, which flew high into the sky and out of sight.

Harry never even thought about these dreams, his mind too weighed down with his own grief and self-loathing. He knew that everything he was feeling was his own fault, as without him, Sirius would not have died at all. He had given up blaming others a long time ago. What was the point in denying what was true? Sirius was dead, and it was all his fault.

There was only one comfort for him. Whenever he got too wrapped up in his misery, he always replayed in his mind what Luna had told him on the last night of term.

'They were just lurking out of sight.'

He had heard their voices. They had been whispering to him, trying to tell him things, although he couldn't understand what those things were. The others hadn't heard them, but then again, they couldn't see the Thestrals either. He had started to realise that maybe he perceived the world differently from the others, because he had seen horrors that they had not. The only other person who had seen anything like what he had seen was Luna, and she could hear the voices too. Maybe there were two different worlds; one for those who were tormented by grief, and one for those who could never understand that feeling, no matter how hard they tried.

But there was something else that Luna had said to him that night, something that kept him strong, for whenever he thought of it, his heart leapt. She may not have said it in those words, but the meaning had been clear.

It's not as though we'll never see them again, is it?

Harry sincerely hoped that she was right.