Destination Unknown

Chapter 9

Halloween, 2013

"Harry! Wake up! We've got to go!" yelled Cory, pulling the covers off his brother. Harry moaned, "Lemme sleep" and rolled over.

"Get up!"

"I'm tired."

"Honestly. Can I ask why you are tired? I was the one who collapsed in Transfiguration last week and got dispatched yesterday."

"Mmm."

"Crabbe! Zabini! Help me wake up lazybones!" called out Cory. His two room mates came over and the three of them shook Harry collectively.

"All right, all right. I'm getting up," groaned Harry and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"We're in the Common Room. Get down fast," said Zabini. He left with Cory and Crabbe. The four girls were waiting for them downstairs.

Harry arrived ten minutes later. The group of first year Slytherins walked out of the dungeons together towards the Great Hall. They met Sylvia and Doug on the way.

"Hey, you two. Wait up!" shouted Cory. Sylvia and Doug stopped.

"Go on. We'll join you soon," said Harry to the rest of the Slytherins. He and Cory walked up to the two Gryffindors.

"What's up with you two? We haven't seen you since our first day back! You always leave class before we can get to you and you never come early. Are you avoiding us?" asked Cory. Sylvia and Doug flushed.

"Lessons, you see..." began Doug, but Harry cut him off.

"We've Flying, Potions, Transfiguration and Charms together, Doug. Isn't that enough? You could at least sit with us in class!"

Sylvia and Doug hung their heads.

"Don't tell me you believe that Slytherins are evil," said Harry.

The two Gryffindors looked suddenly scared.

"Look, you've known us all your life! Do you think we'll become evil just because we're in a particular house?"

They looked very red and ashamed.

"We're sorry, Harry, Cory. We - we guess we just sort of believed what is usually said around here," said Sylvia. Doug nodded.

"Friends again?" he asked faintly.

Harry and Cory grinned broadly. They entered the Great Hall together and heads from all the tables turned to look at them.

Harry suddenly clutched his head and fell to the floor, screaming in agony. McGonagall appeared immediately. She levitated him off the floor and took him to the Hospital Wing, followed by Cory, Sylvia and Doug.

"Not again!" cried Madam Pomfrey, "I don't know what to do with these two Malfoys! Not a week has passed by without one or both of them landing up here!"

"Shall I inform Hermione and Draco?" asked McGonagall.

Madam Pomfrey nodded. Professor McGonagall left.

"What is wrong with you two? The whole school's been talking about how you both faint pretty often clutching your head. It used to happen sometimes when you visited us, too! What is it, Cory?" asked Sylvia.

Cory shook his head.

"I don't know, Syl. I really don't. We keep seeing these weird things happening to us...people hurting us and all...when Mum's near, nothing happens...it's as if she's driving away the nightmares...it stopped completely before we came here...but there's something at Hogwarts which triggers them...we never had it this bad at home..."

Sylvia gave him a tight hug, followed by Doug. Just then, Harry screamed, "Hermione! Ron! Get away from the troll!"

"Harry? Harry! Wake up! It's only a dream!" shouted Cory, shaking his brother.

Harry opened his eyes slowly and blinked.

"C-Cory?"

"I'm here."

"Cory...I saw Mum and Uncle Ron...they were eleven...they were fighting a troll...I was there too...we...we defeated it..."

"It was only a dream, Harry. Go to sleep now," said Cory gently. Harry nodded.

Later that day

Hermione Malfoy ran though the corridors of Hogwarts towards the Hospital Wing where her sons were engrossed in a conversation. At the sound of her running feet, they looked up and their mouths hung open on seeing their mother rushing towards them in a dishevelled state. She looked as if she had run out of the house as soon as she'd been informed, which was, in fact, the case.

"Harry! Cory! Are you okay?" she asked, enveloping both of them at once in a very tight hug.

"We're all right, Mum. Just the occasional nightmares."

"Why didn't you tell me before?"

The two boys hung their heads and Cory said softly, "We didn't want to worry you, Mum."

"Not worry me? Am I not even allowed to worry about my own sons?"

Harry and Cory said nothing.

"What have you been seeing?" Hermione asked after sometime. She paled as she heard Harry's accounts, which came first. He was reliving Harry Potter's memories of his First Year at Hogwarts. Cory's accounts were even more alarming. It seemed that Tom Riddle had had a very rough first year at school, having spent his time being insulted because he was shy and studious and the only half-blood among the pure-blooded Slytherins. Worse still, Draco's grandfather, Othello Malfoy had been his greatest tormentor. Hermione felt very faint. She didn't know what to do.

"Why are we having these dreams, Mum?" asked Harry.

"I don't know, dear."

"You know, Mum, it's almost like we're in someone else's memory...it appears so real...but we can't see the person whose memory it is because we seem to be those people..."

Hermione turned as white as a sheet. It wouldn't be long before her two sons figured out exactly whose memories they were seeing. And once they did, it would be a matter of time that they realised who they themselves were. And she dreaded that day when they would find out. She knew she would have to talk to Dumbledore. She clutched her aching head. None of this was supposed to happen...

She snapped back to reality when she felt two small hands on her own. Harry and Cory were looking at her anxiously.

"Mum? Are you all right?" Harry asked.

"You look as if you have seen a ghost," said Cory.

Hermione smiled weakly at them.

"I'm worried about you two...I hate to see you suffer for no fault of yours...and I don't know what to do..."

Just then, Draco walked in, looking rather pale, but more composed than his wife.

"Are you two all right?" he asked his sons. They nodded. He gave each of them a hug and turned to Hermione.

"We need to talk to Dumbledore. I called Ginny on the way. They are probably waiting for us," he said.

Hermione nodded and stood up. She kissed both her sons on the forehead and walked out with Draco, mouthing a 'see you' to them. As she walked towards the stone gargoyle and Draco uttered the password (pumpkin pasty), she felt as if she were a student again.

When they entered the office, Ron, Ginny, Dumbledore, Snape and McGonagall were already seated there.

"Hello," said Hermione weakly. They all smiled as she and Draco pulled up chairs.

"We seem to have a slight problem," said Dumbledore.

"Albus, I hardly think it is 'slight'. My children are fainting all over the place with horrid visions," snapped Draco. Hermione put a restraining hand on his arm. Dumbledore shook his head.

"Is there a remedy?" asked Hermione.

"We don't know," said Snape.

"Maybe we should tell them the truth," said McGonagall.

"They'll be devastated, Minerva!" Hermione nearly shrieked. It was Draco's turn to calm her.

"I wonder how Harry landed up in Slytherin," mused Ron. Hermione stared at him in shock.

"Ron! Is that all you can think about? His House? What does it matter? Harry Potter was sorted into Gryffindor only because he asked the Hat not to put him in Slytherin. My Harry wanted to be with his brother, I guess, so he didn't object to the Hat's first choice. And speaking of the Hat, it told both of them that it had sorted them before."

Ron looked ashamed. McGonagall looked surprised.

"They do make good Slytherins," said Snape, "and they are excellent in Potions. Potter was always abysmal."

"He was too busy trying to stay alive, Severus. He never really had the chance to study. And those Muggles locked up his school things during the summer," said Draco icily.

"Stop it, all of you!" Ginny yelled suddenly, "I don't think we're here to discuss the past. We are here to decide how to deal with the problem!"

"We can erase their memories every time they dream," said Ron.

"And addle their brains in the process? No thanks; I like my sons just the way they are," said Draco.

"We can tell them everything," suggested McGonagall again.

"And tell them that they are mortal enemies?" snapped Hermione.

"We can give them Dreamlessness Potion,' said Snape.

"And have them moving around like Zombies?" asked Ginny angrily.

Dumbledore cleared his throat loudly. The room fell silent.

"They can be sent to Durmstrang or Beauxbatons," the old Headmaster suggested, "I think their memories are triggered by stimuli similar to the ones that caused the original...take today, for example...in other schools, everything will be new, and it is highly unlikely that they will have too many visions. A few will be unavoidable, I'm afraid."

"Running away from a problem is not a solution, Albus," said McGonagall.

"You'll be glad to see them go away, Minerva, you are so disappointed that Heron is not in Gryffindor," intoned Snape.

"And you're so scared of Crinon that even the students notice it!" she shot back, "I've seen you stare at him as if he's going to use the Cruciatus on you any minute! And you haven't stopped hating Harry, either!"

Ron, Ginny, Draco and Hermione shared a concerned look. Throwing insults at each other was totally out of character for both Snape and McGonagall. What had gotten into them? Were they going senile?

A soft music put an end to their musings. Fawkes the phoenix had appeared out of thin air, and along with him was a white phoenix with gold and silver markings on the tail. Everyone gasped and Hermione jumped out of her chair. Her voice was faint as she uttered one word.

"Harry?"