Dreamwalk Blue

DREAMWALK BLUE -- CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE -- NIGHT FALLING

late, late in the evening i will still be there
look up
the sky above is blue and empty
the air is still warm tonight
one by one the street lamps
are clicking on until the entire city is a-glow and on the
second floor in a red brick building that used to be a bank
horns sound a melody

(from night, falling - jazz for long evenings )

London, 1943

June Lisbon, it was unconsciously and unanimously agreed, was a force of nature. It was a Friday afternoon in July, and June was holding a horde of rapacious reporters at bay again.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your interest, but the Minister has nothing to say at the moment regarding this matter. He would, however, like to extend to you all his invitation to Monday's reception for the Society for Widows and Orphans."

Two Ministry Hit Wizards flanked June on the steps of the decaying stone Ministry building. They were fondly handling their wands, as though they'd like nothing more than to curse the crowd of journalists into oblivion. June could sympathize.

A female reporter waved her quill at June.

Where do they all come from? June thought. There was only one real paper to speak of in all of wizard Britain

The woman waggled her gaudy quill violently, until June had no choice but to acknowledge her for fear someone might lose an eye. "Does the Minister deny that the strife in the Muggle world is beginning to affect wizarding society? This is the second such occurrence in a fortnight…"

June shook her head. "I'm sorry. At this time, the Ministry has no public statement regarding the Muggle war. But rest assured, we have the best resources available attending to the problem." As soon as she finished speaking, the crowd erupted again, the reporters shouting themselves hoarse to be heard above the din.

"Are the recent murders in Albania related to the war? Is there any truth to the rumor that they were killed by Muggle spies?"

"Has the Minister promised the Muggle prime minister any aid in the war effort?"

"What does the Ministry plan to do? The people have a right to protection…"

June rocked back on her heels. She spoke to the Hit Wizards without turning her head or visibly moving her mouth. "All right, boys. Do your thing."

The one on the right looked questioningly at her and hefted his wand.

"Not that thing -- as much as we all might want to. No, no. Make sure they're all cleared out of here before the Minister leaves for Prince Edward."

The flash of a camera left June momentarily blinded. "Go on then. We all want to get out of here this afternoon."

The Hit Wizards moved into the crowd.

June smiled pleasantly. "Thank you all for coming, ladies and gentlemen." The Hit Wizards moved among the reporters encouraging them firmly to go.

"Hey! What's the idea?"

"Brother. Ouch! My paper has lawyers, you know…"

"Fascists!" spat one of the members of the independent press.

Once the steps were cleared, June stumbled wearily down to the Italian marble fountain in the center of the courtyard and sat on the edge, fumbling for a cigarette. The taller Hit Wizard, John Fletcher, conjured a blue flame with his wand and lit it for her.

"Thanks," she said, inhaling and leaning back. "You two going with the Minister this weekend?" The pair nodded glumly. She shook her head.

"Short straw, eh? Sorry to hear it. Glad I'm not going this time, though."

"Fletcher! Alexander!" came a clipped, authoritative voice. "We're ready for you." It was Theodore Cousins, the Minister's personal secretary. The two jumped up and scurried up the steps to help the Minister out to the sleek, black Ministry car.

Moments later June was leaning down, her blonde head framed by a car window, gently imploring her boss, Minister of Magic Milton Bulfinch, to please not talk to anyone about any Ministry matters even in Canada.

The car slid away. June let her cigarette fall to the pavement and stamped it out with a square, red toe.

***

Later that evening, June climbed out of a luxuriously long bath to find that the only major decisions before her that night were where to go, what to wear and who to be seen with while doing the former. She pondered this, relishing in the simplicity of it, as she pinned up her hair. June wrapped herself in a silk kimono embroidered with bluebirds and sakura sprays. She mixed a cocktail and curled up in a large chair next to the wireless, Bessie Smith belting out the blues while June lacquered her toenails with slick, crimson polish.

Her head popped up at a knock on the door.

"Who is it?" She sipped casually at her iced bourbon and bitters, not bothering to get up and open the door.

"Hayden, gorgeous. Open up," came the lazy reply.

"Open it yourself, you rake." The door swung inward, revealing Hayden Fairborne. Lean, handsome and impeccably dressed, Hayden leaned languidly against the doorjamb and hit her with the full force of his infamous, lopsided smile.

She just barely looked up from her toes. "Oh, now. You know that doesn't work on me. Get in here and close that door. There's a draft."

He complied and headed immediately for the miniature bar in the corner. "So, darling." He poured himself a healthy amount of gin and the barest splash of tonic. "Where are we off to tonight?"

"We?" June raised a flawlessly plucked and penciled eyebrow at him. "The last time I took you to a party, Hayden darling, you disappeared with the Minister's daughter and I had to spend the entire evening lying shamelessly to him to cover your indiscretions."

Hayden sprawled in a chair across from her and withdrew a silver cigarette case from his inside pocket. "Really, June, isn't lying to the Minister your job?"

"That," she laughed haughtily, "is quite beside the point. While I lie to the Minister -- and the public at large as well, mind -- on a daily basis, it is to benefit my own career. Not to save some pampered -- although devastatingly handsome -- scoundrel from finally getting exactly what he deserves at the hands of a jealous father." She accepted a cigarette from him.

He leaned forward to light their cigarettes with an engraved silver lighter, a carefully calculated affectation. "Don't you mean 'protective,' darling? Protective father, jealous husband."

"While you've no doubt had experience of both, I do in this case mean 'jealous father.' I shall be supremely lucky if the Daily Prophet never gets hold of that little gem of a story," she said, bringing the cigarette to her painted lips.

"How deliciously tawdry…" Hayden grinned, taking a slow, languorous drag on his smoke. He splayed his arms along the sides of his chair, long-limbed thoroughbred that he was, cigarette in the right hand, sweating glass in the other.

"Perhaps -- if you promise your best behavior, of course -- we'll go to Lulu's." She stamped the spent cigarette out in a shell-shaped ashtray. "There's quite an interesting crowd there, so they say."

"I'll say," Hayden smirked. "Just the other day your favorite publication ran an intriguing series of articles denouncing dear Lulu, along with the proprietors of several other such establishments. How did they put it exactly? Ah, yes. 'Eroding the sense of cultural pride and wizard values in the younger generation.' They were shocked… Shocked, mind you, darling… to discover that these so-called nightclubs were actually dens of Muggle music and dancing. And, even more shocking and disturbing," he pulled a face of mock-concern, "was the fact that many of the young people frequenting these establishments have taken to wearing Muggle clothing."

He sat up. "It will, I fear, be the downfall of our proud society and its flawless sense of moral direction." He shook his head, brushing the wrinkles out of his Beau Brummel suit.

"So," June rolled her eyes, "Lulu's then?"

"Why, of course." He did the lopsided smile again. "Now get dressed or I shall have to drag you there naked and give the Prophet something to really write about : 'Press Advisor Caught Dancing Nude To Morally Decadent Music.' It's a bit long, but quite a headline. And they do so love working in the word 'nude' on the front page." He slugged back the remainder of his drink. "It would be a shame for your career, though, darling."

"On the contrary," June smirked, displaying her silk-clad figure to him for good effect, "it might get me appointed Minister of Magic."

***

As they approached the narrow stairway leading up to Lulu's, June caught the first strains of passably covered Duke Ellington. Her arm linked through Hayden's, she scanned the faces coming up and down the stairs. Mostly young people, but there were more than a few A-list types lurking about.

Not too long ago Lulu's had been a struggling restaurant called Ambrosia. The food, unfortunately, had not been ambrosia and the owners, with creditors, vendors and goblins at the gate, sold the lion's share of the business to Lulu DuPree, a flash, brassy dame from Chicago with oceans of ill-gotten wealth. Lulu covered the debts and pulled the place back from the brink on one condition: that she be allowed to run things her way. Lulu's way included sacking the kitchen staff, building a dance floor, buying freighters full of every liquor imaginable and hiring Dack Bennett and his Magical Band. With a splashy re-opening, picketing parents and miles of bad press from the Prophet, Lulu's flourished.

It was the daring, smart place to be in all of wizard London in 1943. The crowd reflected Lulu's wide appeal. Teenagers, the young elite, the up-and-comers all dressed to the Muggle nines in flashy suits and jewel-toned cocktail dresses. It was astounding. No wonder the Daily Prophet condemned it so roundly.

On Hayden's dashing arm, June couldn't suppress a smile. She waved and greeted several people she knew (and a few she didn't but who obviously knew her). Upstairs, they entered the ballroom, the dancing already in high-gear. From a quiet corner of the club, a tall, auburn-haired man in cobalt robes waved to June. He looked terribly out of place. June waved back, very surprised to see him of all people at Lulu's.

"Who is that, June?" Hayden asked, looking the man over incredulously. "Surely you don't know him?"

June ignored him, letting go of his arm and moving forward to greet the other man. "Albus!" She found herself ensnared by a pair of long, gangly arms.

"Hello, June." Albus Dumbledore smiled down at her, the smile lighting up his intelligent blue eyes.

She pulled away from his embrace. "What on earth are you doing here? I thought the hallowed halls of academia had swallowed you permanently."

"Ah, yes. I am a bit of a fish on a bicycle here, aren't I?"

Someone cleared his throat significantly behind her. "Oh! I'm terribly sorry." She grabbed Hayden's arm and pulled him forward. "Hayden Fairborne, this is Albus Dumbledore. Albus and I grew up together."

Albus extended a hand in greeting. "Pleased to meet you, Hayden."

"Albus is a terribly renowned professor." She looked up at Hayden. "Which is why I'm so surprised to see him out wasting time socializing rather than in some library surrounded by stacks of dusty books."

"I'm sure," Hayden said coolly.

"Do you work with June at the Ministry?" Albus asked, attempting to make conversation.

"No," Hayden replied, off-handedly. "I'm fantastically wealthy, actually. So I spend most of my time playing tennis, going to smart parties and trying to convince June here to enter into a loveless but excruciatingly fashionable marriage with me."

Albus just smiled. Hayden seemed to decide that baiting Albus wasn't any fun and scuttled off to collect some drinks.

"Aberforth is here, June. Actually he's the reason I'm here. I expect he'll be excited to see you." Albus, for his part, looked not only happy to see her, but also terribly relieved.

She smiled sympathetically. "This really isn't your sort of place, is it?"

He shook his head. "No. But it is yours, June. When you walked through that door every head in the room turned."

She tried to control the flush rising beneath her carefully applied make-up. "Albus, really. You flatter me shamelessly."

"I only tell the truth." He pulled a chair out for her at his table.

Hayden returned with drinks for himself and June. "Here you are, June darling. This is where we're sitting, is it? I ran into Ares and Lucinda Malfoy. They asked us to join them…"

"Really, Hayden. There's plenty of time to be horrid snobs later." She sipped her drink and smiled at Albus. "Right now I want to catch up with an old friend."

Hayden looked sulky but sat down. His spirits greatly improved, however, when smartly dressed Aberforth Dumbledore ambled up surrounded by a group of attractive young women.

"June!" Aberforth was Albus' older brother -- dandy-ish, handsome and rather dim. June had always found him desperately dull, but she smiled and took his hand.

"So, June, how long until they put you in charge of everything over at the Ministry?" Aberforth winked at her.
"I much prefer running things from the shadows, Aberforth." She winked back.

Several of Aberforth's groupies were eyeing Hayden.

"Oh, go dance, Hayden. You're giving me a headache." She waved him off toward the brightly-clad girls, who tittered like a net full of butterflies as he offered his arms to them.

"Now, tell me," she said when they were at last left alone. "How are things, really?"

Albus sighed, and for the first time she noticed the shadows under his eyes and the strain around his mouth. "A bit difficult, actually. I've stumbled on to something- Well, this really isn't the place to talk about it. But I've been rather worried."

"Academic rivalries and poison pens, is that it?" June patted his hand.

"I'm afraid it's a bit more than that. Or possibly not. Perhaps I'm just making too much of this because of the times."

"They are a bit worrisome, aren't they? So much uncertainty." She shook her head.

"Exactly. And my fear is that things will only get worse for us." He looked down, swishing his wine around its glass.

"Harder than now? Albus, really. There's a war on, you know. How could things get all that much worse?"

He sighed. "We aren't really that touched by this war. But I'm afraid we'll have our own problems sooner-"

"Professor!" a bright female voice exclaimed from behind them.

They turned. A boy and girl were standing there holding hands. The boy couldn't have been more than seventeen or eighteen, the girl probably younger.

"This is the last place I would have expected to see you." For all her youth, she was exceptionally attractive. Her dark hair was pinned up and her eyes were such a deep shade of blue they seemed almost black.

"Hello, Professor." The boy looked as though he wished he were anywhere else.

Albus seemed surprised. "Tom. Metis. How nice to see you. Please sit."

"Metis…" The boy tugged on her hand.

"Honestly, Tom. Don't be silly. It's not as though we're at school." She sat, pulling him with her.

They looked more like siblings than lovers, both dark-haired, dark-eyed and fair. But the boy was gazing at the girl with a quiet kind of passionate intensity, the sort described in aching detail in cheap, poorly-written novels. Novels in which the doomed lovers usually ended up drinking poison or murdered by a jealous suitor. The girl noticed his attention and her face lit with an equally clichéd radiance. June's first impulse was to laugh, but something in the boy's expression warned her that this young man wouldn't tolerate that kind of disrespect.

Albus turned to June. "Tom, Metis, this is my friend June Lisbon." Metis smiled. "And, June, these are two of my best students - Metis McGonagall and Tom Riddle."

"So pleased to meet you." June smiled pleasantly and extended a hand to them both.

"Likewise," Tom said, speaking with a maturity and politeness that belied his age. "You work for the Minister of Magic, don't you?"

June was surprised he'd recognized her. "Yes, I do as a matter of fact."

"What are you two doing in London?" Albus asked. "Tom, I thought you were staying at school this summer."

"I am, Professor." Tom seemed uncomfortable with the subject.

Metis stepped in smoothly and deflected the unwanted attention away from him. "We're visiting my aunt, Professor. It's been simply ages since I'd been to London and Hogsmeade is so dull in the summer."

"Surely you're staying out of Muggle London, with the threat of bombing and all." June found herself uncharacteristically concerned for this pair of kids wandering around London by themselves.

"Of course," Metis assured her. Tom relaxed, letting his hand drop onto Metis' shoulder.

Watching them, June was struck again by the aura around them. It was almost as if they were yin and yang. She exuded light and vibrancy, he absorbed it.

The music slowed, and Tom said, "Perhaps we should dance, Metis. That is what we came for after all."

June could tell he simply wanted to get away from his teacher, and who could blame him really? When she'd been a teenager, the last people she would have wanted to run into on holiday were her professors.

Tom bid them farewell and led Metis away onto the dance floor. June found herself continuing to watch them. She noticed that the boy wore all black, the girl a dress of watered indigo silk. When they danced they clung to one another, as though they'd drown if they let go.

"They have that effect on people, don't they?"

With an effort, June pulled her attention back to Albus. "Hmm?"

He leaned in to speak softly to her. "I said, those two have that effect on people. People watch them, are interested in their lives. They are, needless to say, rather popular with their peers. In an odd way though…"

Just how the two were odd, June didn't get to hear. Hayden returned from frustrating the all the available girls and collapsed into the nearest chair.

"Oh, June darling, I'm bored. It's not even a challenge anymore. These silly, childish women… Say, who is that?" He was looking at Metis. Tom had left her standing by herself for a moment. Hayden looked her over with a characteristic appreciation. "Now that would be a challenge."

"Yes. Especially as she's fifteen years younger than you are, and her parents would likely have you clapped in irons first." June idly watched the ice cubes in her drink slide companionably against one another, melting into each other, slipping against the slick, cold bourbon, struggling to remain upright. After a moment, she looked up and followed Hayden's gaze.

Tom disentangled himself from the two young men who'd come up to speak with him and returned to Metis. As he crossed the dance floor, he noticed Hayden's rather blatant attention. June wouldn't have thought such a young and handsome face as Tom's could hold such anger. Visibly upset he walked quickly back to Metis, grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her from their sight.

***

Something dripped onto the rain-slicked London pavement outside Lulu's at regular intervals, echoing weirdly around the narrow alleyway. Lights from the surrounding buildings reflected an oil-spill rainbow against the wet street. People walked unconcernedly past -- laughing, talking partygoers oblivious to the sirens that cut the night elsewhere in London. And in the blue-tinged shadows of the alley a minor drama was unfolding.

"Tom, please wait. We shouldn't. Not here," a soft, pleading female voice was saying.

"Don't, Metis. Just don't," the boy snapped in reply.

"We'll get caught. I just know we will. We've been far too careless." And then she stifled a cry.

Deep in shadow, behind discarded packing crates and carelessly emptied rubbish containers, Tom Riddle pinned Metis McGonagall up against the damp bricks that housed Lulu's. He bent his face close to hers and said in his habitual undertone, "We will not get caught. We never have before and we won't now." A brief expression of annoyance crossed his face. "It's ridiculous. Those sort of rules shouldn't even apply to people like us, Metis."

She reached up and stroked his face. She had a gift for soothing him, taming him, protecting him with a simple word or touch. "It's not far to my aunt's. We can walk. There's no sense in it."

He shoved her hand away from his cheek. There was no reasoning with him in these moods, even for her. "We are going home, Metis. Now. You can owl your aunt from there. I doubt she'll even miss us 'til morning."

Her eyes widened, her damp eyelashes like charcoal smudges against her fair skin. "Tom…"

He leaned against her, pressing her more tightly against the brick. "I didn't want to come in the first place. I did for you, Metis. For you." He kissed her with none of the awkwardness one would expect from a teenage boy. Her breath hitched and she grabbed hold of his slender arms. "And now," he said, releasing her, "I want to leave."

She was beaten and he knew it. She looked at him, her eyes liquid, unshed tears of passion and frustration in the movement of her chest.

He stepped away from her, taking care to remain in shadow. "Come here." He extended a hand to her. "You don't have to do it. I will. I can handle us both."

She pushed away from the wall and came to him. He pulled her close, enfolding her in his arms. Her head pillowed on his chest, she could feel the warmth of his breath, taste the familiar scent of him. It made her ache.

"Stay with me tonight," he whispered. "Your mother doesn't expect you. There won't be anyone left at the school."

"All right," she said, and abruptly they Disapparated.

***

June woke the next morning with a buzzing headache. She rolled over and clamped a round, silk pillow over her head to stop the room spinning. Lying there unsure whether to get up or go back to sleep, the night before came back to her.

After their strange encounter with Albus' students (or perhaps their encounter with Albus' strange students?), the two of them talked quietly about familiar places and mutual friends. Hayden, put out at being ignored, chatted up a brassy blonde reporter from the Prophet just to annoy June. Five Manhattans and one harrowing Lindy Hop with Hayden later, she'd decided to call it a night. As they prepared to leave, Albus, looking tired, had pulled her aside and made her promise to come to dinner Sunday.

Dinner with the Dumbledores. Her mother would be ecstatic.

Deciding sleep was out of the question, June rose and flung on her kimono. She walked into the small but elegantly appointed living room to find a very rumpled Hayden passed out in the same chair he'd occupied the previous night. His tie was askew, his mouth open and an extinguished cigarette dangled from one hand.

She poked him with an experimental finger.

He stirred but didn't open his eyes. "Mater?" Hayden mumbled sleepily.

June rolled her eyes and went into the kitchen. She put the kettle on and set to making eggs. She dumped a vial of headache tonic into a glass of club soda and gulped it down. The pounding around her temples eased. She lit a cigarette and fished her wand out from behind a bottle of cooking sherry, then pointed it at the eggs on the stove. Feeling a bit better, she ventured out to the bar and mixed up twin Bloody Marys.

She was spooning the eggs onto two plates and starting on a second cigarette when a voice from the doorway drawled, "I say, if one of those drinks is for me you're my sort of ministering angel, darling."

"Good morning, Hayden. And how did you find my chair last night?"

He crossed to the counter and picked up the Bloody Mary gratefully. "Infinitely better than the back seat of a taxi, which is where I would have slept had I attempted to leave here."

June laughed and, balancing her plate, drink and cigarette, ambled back out into the living room… and promptly nearly dropped the plate onto her brand-new alpaca rug.

"Mother?" June gasped.

Rhea Lisbon, or rather her head, regarded her daughter from the fireplace. "Good morning, June dear."

Hayden emerged from the kitchen, nearly colliding with June.

Her mother craned her neck. "Good Lord, June! Is that a man?"

"It's just Hayden, Mother." To which Hayden mumbled something rather rude.

"Still the suggestion of impropriety, dear…" She trailed off, looking worried.

"Really, Mother. I know things about our duly elected officials that would positively curl your hair." June settled onto the settee, balancing her plate on her knees.

Rhea looked reproachful. "I'm sure, dear. You forget I've been married to your father for thirty years. I know a thing or two myself."

"Of course, Mother. Now, what could possibly be so important this early on a Saturday?" She took a long drag on her cigarette.

"Well, for one, I wish you wouldn't smoke those dreadful things…" June shrugged, and her mother continued undaunted, "For another, I've had an owl from Ariadne this morning. She tells me young Albus invited you to Sunday dinner."

"Yes, Mother." June should have known. Her mother had been angling for a Lisbon-Dumbledore match since June had been about six. "Which brother would you have me vamp? Albus or Aberforth? They're both well placed socially, handsome and obscenely wealthy. Although, Aberforth's not quite right in the head…"

"Really," Rhea snapped. "Would it hurt you to think of your family for once? You're our only daughter…"

"…and your father and I only want you to be happy." June finished for her. "Honestly, Mother, I'm only twenty-five. The way you talk you'd think I was a toothless hag."

"Some of my nicest aunts are toothless hags…" Hayden began, but stopped at a fierce look from June.

"Don't think I don't see the way the younger boy looks at you, June." Rhea looked ready to climb out of the fireplace and shake her finger at her daughter. "Don't play with that boy's affections. It will come back to bite you, mark my words."

"Mother," June said, her headache beginning to come back. "I've had a very long week. I promise to owl you the very moment Albus proposes, should it ever happen. Can we leave it there?"

Rhea did not look placated but said, "You're going out to the country house, I assume? Ariadne didn't say."

"Yes, Mother. I'm going to Sussex."

"Then for heaven's sake, wear some suitable clothes. And try not to smoke any of those foul cigarettes," she snapped and disappeared from the fire.

"Going to Sussex with Mr. Professor, are we?" Hayden grumped. "Well, perhaps your dear Mater has less to worry about than she…"

"Do shut up, Hayden," June snapped and flung her cigarette viciously into the fire.

***

Sunlight filtered through the arched stained glass windows in the study that once belonged to his father. Shelves of gold-stamped books with bent and broken spines lined the room, stretching toward the high, domed ceiling. Naiads and dryads chased one another laughingly across the dome's age-cracked mural. Artemis glared sulkily down at him, clutching her quiver and bow, one hand stroking the head of a restless stag. Richly varnished golden wood and polished brass lined the room and its surfaces. It was a room of colored glass and gleaming metal, lit by shuttered lamps, filled with rare and interesting objects. But for all its outward beauty, it was an austere place, cold and ordered. The study was uncharted territory, hostile, as though, even after more than a year, the room still considered him an intruder. The chairs refused to allow him comfort, pages of books stuck together denying him their secrets. He felt guilty and clumsy as he had as a boy, sneaking into this room to marvel at his father's hidden wonders and grown-up mysteries.

Albus leaned forward, burying his face in ink-stained hands. Quills and inkbottles, sheets of parchment lay scattered on the mahogany desk. Next to his elbow, a large book, bound in ancient leather and brass, rested open to a time-yellowed page written in a studied hand.

Sighing, he stood. He would get no more accomplished tonight. He crossed to the far wall. Tall, slender windows, delicate panes of colored glass set in molded iron, opened onto the western lawn. Albus pushed one open, resting his hand on the brass telescope that stood beside it. It stood ready to glimpse snatches of the far-off heavens as soon as the sun set. Albus wondered what the stars would say tonight if he knew how to read them. That also had been his father's domain. Albus thought it fitting and ironic that he should always imagine the heavens as belonging solely to his father.

Shaking those thoughts away, he found himself reliving the end of last term and the events that had brought him home, to this room he'd avoided, to the one place he could hope to find some solitude. It had started with a dream. Or, rather, his waking from a dream…

A knock, like a roll of thunder in the heavy, summer twilight, shook the door. It had not woken him. He'd already emerged from the dream, expectant; knowing someone would be there. He rolled out of bed, flinging a light robe over his shoulders and tripping across the stone floor in the half-light.

The knock repeated as he reached the door. "Albus? Albus! Wake up," came an impatient voice from the corridor.

Half-blinded by the light from the hallway, Albus squinted at Ed Halley, the rumpled, young Astronomy professor.

"Well, come on then," the younger man said. He, too, was wearing a robe and slippers and looked as though he'd been roused from a sound sleep. "Dippet wants us all in the staff room. No doubt something else horrible has happened…"

Following Halley down the deserted corridor, though, Albus didn't think so.

When they reached the staff room, he saw that the rest of the faculty had already assembled. Dippet appeared both troubled and triumphant in turns, as though he weren't yet sure what to make of the night's events.

"Well, it's over," the headmaster sighed. "We know who opened the Chamber, who is responsible for the death of that poor girl. Although, I doubt it's what any of us expected."

Albus should have been shocked and relieved, instead he only half-listened to the headmaster explaining how Rubeus Hagrid, a third year, must have accidentally opened the Chamber and set the monster loose. Dippet, of course, had every confidence that it was an unfortunate accident. However, it went without saying that the poor boy had to be expelled. There was nothing else for it.

"It needn't be said, of course," Dippet continued. "That the existence of the Chamber does not prove that the legends of Salazar Slytherin's heir have any validity. In fact, I believe it wiser that none of this should ever leave this room. And, in that vein…" He gestured to Harrison, the deputy headmaster, who opened the far door and beckoned someone in. "Tom. Thank you for waiting."

He looked around at his assembled staff, placing a fatherly hand on a strained-looking Tom Riddle's shoulder. "Tom, displaying great courage, is the one who found poor Rubeus and tried to convince him to come to me. When the boy refused, Tom came himself."

Tom looked miserable. "Really, sir. I don't…" he began.

"Now, Tom. This is very serious. What you did was quite brave, and you will be rewarded accordingly. But we need your promise that you will never speak of what happened tonight."

Many of the other faculty members were nodding in agreement. Albus understood; the school had very nearly been closed, but he didn't agree.

Tom nodded slowly, as if reluctant give his word. "Yes, sir," he said, finally in an odd voice. "Of course, I promise."

"Well. That's settled, then. This was all a tragic, regrettable mistake. But it is at an end." Dippet clapped the ashen-faced boy on the shoulder again. "There is no Heir of Slytherin."

***

The light, golden and inviting, called to her like siren song. It lured her, enticing her to bask, tempting her to come just a bit nearer. Beckoning, hazy light just beyond her reach in the chilly night shadows, so close it made her gut ache. She imagined she could taste it: caramel, champagne, and nectar. Deep, honey kisses drizzling lazily on her tongue and down into her belly. She could reach it. Closer… Metis strained toward the light, ignoring the strangeness in her limbs, the alien senses tingling through unfamiliar nerves. She trembled, thrills of excitement and need shivering through her with equal force, like an addict scenting the cloying aroma of burning opium. Almost there. Closer… She could just touch it…

Ouch.

Metis sprang back, knocking into something solid, something metallic. She spun, glimpsing her reflection in the scorched, smoky metal. A moth, doe-colored and tawny with pleasing sienna markings, spread its wings and twitched feathery antennae at her from the makeshift mirror. It was not the first time she'd dreamed herself to be someone else, something else. As in those other dreams, it seemed perfectly natural. She accepted her new body without question.

Beating her tiny wings, she tried to escape the shutters of the gas lamp that held her trapped. Her human sense wanting to distance itself from the danger of burning, her moth sense ready to fling itself wholesale into the oblivion of light and heat.

Like slipping into a warm bath, the moth said seductively. But Metis' sense of herself remained strong, and in the end the girl triumphed over the moth. She fluttered away from the gaslight to find herself in the dusky twilight of a London street. A man and a woman stood in the pool of imperfect, golden light cast by Metis' lamp. The woman was exceptionally beautiful, dark-eyed and fair skinned; her coal-black hair fixed up in an outdated style. She was smiling and holding the man's hand. Metis looked at the man, and caught her breath.

Tom? It was Tom, and yet wasn't. Tall, slender, dark-haired and handsome just as her Tom was… and, yet, with something missing. Something without which Tom would not be Tom. It was his aura of electricity, the sense of barely contained wild power that both excited and frightened her. This man had no such rawness. He was calm, collected, contented and ever-so sure.

But then, Metis started as the woman called her companion by name.

"Tom," she laughed, gently chastising him for some silly joke. She laid her hand familiarly on his lapel, smiling and shaking her head in spite of herself.

Was this is a future then? Was that man indeed Tom, an older, tamer, domesticated Tom? She looked down at the beautiful woman, abruptly heartsick. She could not imagine a world in which Tom loved someone else. Their connection was shattering, consuming, unbearable. He was half of her; they fit together like pieces in a puzzle. Were he to stop loving her, she would be dashed and broken, left in tatters. Or was this then, perhaps, a past? The thought soothed her, although she rarely dreamed the past. She forced herself to be calm, looking around at the street, the cars, the buildings in turn. This was not a present or future London. It was London as it had appeared twenty years ago.

The dream setting shimmered and changed. Metis rode the current of time like a jet. She came to rest on the bare, splayed branch of a leafless shrub. The garden of a country house, grey with early winter frost, lay decaying beneath a cold, silver moon. The woman was there again -- this time with her hair down and wearing a white dress. Unchecked tears spilled down her rouged cheeks, as she raised a hand to wipe them away a large, well-cut diamond caught the brittle moonlight. The aristocratic man with Tom's face stood in a wedge of light that spilled from a half-open French door, anger and betrayal twisting his handsome features making them nearly unrecognizable.

Her dream shifted again like sand underfoot. Leaves budding and dying, the planet spinning, stars changing their position in the sky as if the earth were marching at double-time. The house stood unchanged, though the garden was now in the full flush of summer.

A shadowed figure walked unhurriedly through the garden: a man, a boy really, his attitude and gait immediately recognizable to Metis. She sped forward, meeting him on his way up the terraced steps. She alighted gently on his collar, flicking her antennae imperceptibly across the bare skin where his neck met his shoulder. This was her Tom. The familiar taste of him flooded her with relief and longing.

He slipped silently through the French doors, walking confidently through dimly lit rooms as though he knew the way. He reached the entrance hall. Ignoring the sweeping, marble staircase, he headed for a pair of double doors off the hall to the left. Soft music played inside the room, just audible in the high-ceilinged entry hall. The sweet scent of expensive pipe tobacco drifted out. An ornate chandelier cast rainbows on Tom's skin as he tilted his head to listen. Decided, he reached for the scrolled, brass handle…

No! Metis wanted to scream aloud, but couldn't. No. Don't. Terrible things lay beyond that door. If he turned that handle everything would end.

"Don't!" With a violent jerk, Metis awoke. She was trembling with reaction, the residue of the dream still clinging to her like clammy fingers. She put a shaking hand to her cheek and realized, to her surprise, that she was crying.

It was unnaturally dark in the underground room, lit only by a tiny, blue-flamed lamp in the corner. She glanced around the room, taking reassurance from the familiar surroundings. The chipped and worn stone walls, the floor polished with years of treading feet. Opposite her, three empty, neatly made beds faced the center of the room. On the chest at her feet rested her overnight bag, its contents strewn carelessly across the wooden lid. And, finally, beside her in the high, four-poster bed was Tom himself. He lay on his back, his long arms stretched above his head in slumber. She reached out a hand to touch him, calmed by the mere reminder of his presence.

Her aunt thought she was at her mother's, her mother that she was at her aunt's. It didn't worry her. She had played this game before and never gotten caught. She could talk her way out of anything with her natural ease and Tom's influence.

She rolled onto her side, supporting herself on one elbow, watching him sleep, watching the rise and fall of his chest. She stroked a gentle hand across the bare skin exposed where he'd thrown off the blanket. He woke abruptly, catching her wrist with cat-like reflexes.

"Metis. You scared me," he said softly. Then catching sight of her tear-stained face, "What is it?"

She opened her mouth to recall the dream, but stopped, strangely reluctant to share it with him. She shook her head. "Just a nightmare," she said instead.

He reached up and brushed under her eyes with the tips of his long fingers. He dragged her face down to his and kissed her intently, rolling over and pushing her onto her back.

"Nox," he said, breaking away for a moment. The blue flame extinguished at his word, plunging the room into thick, tangible darkness. "Metis?"

"Mmm?" She had the unsettling sense that he could see her, even in the dark.

"Nothing can hurt you as long as you're with me. Never forget that." His breath was hot against her neck. "I won't let anything, or anyone, touch you."

"Tom…"

"You're mine. Always." There was an odd note of finality in his soft voice. "I won't ever let that change. Do you believe that?"

"I believe you."

***