Forgotten Dreams

"Well, can you remember everything you've been doing?" Ginny asked. "Are there big blank periods where you don't know what you've been up to?"

Harry racked his brains.

"No," he said.

"Then You-Know-Who hadn't ever possessed you," said Ginny simply. "When he did it to me, I couldn't remember what I'd been doing for hours at a time. I'd find myself somewhere and not know how I got there.

As Ginny lay in her bed, trying to sleep, she remembered her conversation with Harry earlier that day. It was disturbing to have holes in your memory--chunks of your life that were just blank. Once she had thought it was the scariest thing she could face. The evidence of her nighttime activities was scary, but it was almost a relief to be able to guess where she had been. It was disturbing to wake up covered in blood and know that she had been the one to slaughter the chickens, but it was infinitely worse the times she woke up without a clue. On those days she kept waiting to find out what new mischief had been caused. When nothing surfaced, it was left up to her imagination to wonder where she had been and what she had done. And Ginny had a very good imagination.

Yes, once Ginny had thought those gaps in her memory were the scariest things she could face, but that was before her mind started to fill in those gaps.

It had started at the beginning of her third year, when everyone else was preoccupied by the upcoming Triwizard Tournament. One night she woke up from a nightmare she couldn't remember. Two nights later, it happened again. The terror deepened with each occurrence. By the fourth time she was waking up drenched in sweat and still had no idea why.

Each time it happened, she became more and more afraid to go to sleep. She stayed up chatting or studying or anything else she could find to keep herself away from the unknown terrors of her unconscious mind.

She tried everything she could to remember what the dreams were. She thought that if she could remember them, maybe she could control them, or at least learn to deal with them.

A scrying spell from a book in the library gave her glimpses into the dreams. All she got were fragments--bits and pieces of a puzzle. It took her weeks to put enough together to see the picture.

Long before that, she noticed other affects. The terror didn't lessen, but underneath it was a current of something else--something she couldn't quite identify. When she started waking up wet and aroused, she told herself it was her imagination.

Fragments of the dream caused strange emotions as well. An innocuous looking classroom sent shivers of terror up her spine. A white candle in the darkness inexplicably thrilled her. A single rose made her cry.

With time, the terror from the dreams grew less, and the arousal grew more. She welcomed the change, even if she didn't understand it. She started fearing sleep less. She eventually started looking forward to it.

And then she put the pieces of her puzzle together. It all fell into place rather suddenly. One day she cast the spell and simply got one more fragment to go with all the rest. The next day her fragment put it all together until she suddenly had the whole picture. Details were missing still. They would be filled in later, but the picture she had was enough.

She remembered the early days of the diary, when she still thought Tom Riddle was her friend. She remembered the way he drew her in and made her trust him. She remembered the pain of his sudden betrayal, and she remembered the horrors that she had committed without ever guessing in her waking life. She saw the pain she inflicted on herself and others, and she saw the pleasure as well. He had raped her in spirit before he had ever taken her to the Chamber. By the time he had a corporeal form to take her for real, she had welcomed it with open arms.

That was the true horror in her mind. She could accept the horrors committed by her body when he was in possession of it, but she could not forgive herself for wanting what he could give.

Even now, she still has dreams about him, but they are no longer nightmares, and they are no longer memories. Now her mind creates new fantasies. Outwardly, she is devoted to the Order's cause, and would devote all her energy to Voldemort's defeat, but in a small corner of her mind she wishes the diary hadn't been destroyed and she could have Tom Riddle back the way she remembers him. She rarely acknowledges that thought even to herself.

During the day she pushes those dreams aside and does her best to forget about them, but at night, lying in her bed, waiting for sleep to overtake her she cannot forget. Sometimes she even willingly lets her mind wander, and it is on those nights that she is happiest.