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Author: Felix-Felicitas Story: Asleep, He Dreamed Rating: Teens Setting: Pre-DH Status: WIP Reviews: 12 Words: 16,293
Harry stared at the small brown dot, transfixed. The name looked so benign, written in neat, compact script, placid in the middle of Slytherin Common Room. It seemed to him that the name should look ... well, different, reflecting the evil that it represented. The speck began to move, back and forth, and Harry readied his wand, only to realize that Voldemort was pacing, and not an immediate threat. He watched the mark for what felt like hours, but was probably minutes, before flinging the map onto the table with a grunt of frustration. He couldn't just sit and stare at a map for hours upon end, waiting for Voldemort to make his move. He'd never been one to just wait -- he preferred to take a deep breath and dive in headlong. Why postpone the inevitable? As much as Hermione had scolded him about his hot-headedness in the past, it was a method that worked for him He got to his feet and began to pace, finding a certain irony in the fact that he and Voldemort apparently shared more than the ability to speak Parseltongue. Harry thought better and faster on the move; keeping his body occupied made his mind sharper. As he prowled the room like a caged lion, he heard a high pitched humming from behind him, and turned just in time to see the Marauders Map go up in bile green flames. By the time he'd pointed his wand at the conflagration, the map was already a pile of ash, beyond the point that Aguamenti would be of any use. The Sneakascope was screeching madly in his satchel, so he silenced it with a tap of his wand. He didn't need a cheap piece of enchanted tin to tell him that an enemy was at hand. The Invisibility Cloak was still in one piece, so he left the soft flow of silver where it was, loathe to even touch it in case it caught fire. Voldemort was obviously watching him somehow, and had destroyed the map, knowing that it gave Harry an advantage, however slight. He looked up from his bookbag to find Ginny sitting in the chair next to his, solemn and silent, tears rolling down her face. She looked so forlorn that his first instinct was to hug her, but he dropped his arms, remembering that it was a futile gesture. Dragging his chair around, he maneuvered it until they were sitting face to face, close enough that if she had been more than mere vapour, their knees would have touched. Ginny's mouth was down turned with misery, eyes puffy and red, and her hair damp, clinging to her cheeks, but it suddenly struck Harry that she was remarkably pretty. He didn't know when it had happened, but somehow, she was no longer just Ron's little sister. The woman she was going to be in a few short years showed in her face, strong and beautiful, and just looking at her gave him an odd little thrill in his stomach. Cho made him nervous; Ginny made him glow. For some reason, everything about Ginny was vibrant, almost painfully so. She looked real, unlike Ron, Hermione or Mrs. Weasley. He could see hints of gold sparking in her hair, count every freckle dotted across the bridge of her nose. She seemed so small and fragile, sitting there ramrod straight, her hands clasped together tightly in her lap, so tightly that her fingers appeared white and bloodless. He looked into her brown eyes, and frowned. She didn't seem to be able to see him, despite the fact that he was directly within her line of vision. She looked right through him, her eyes focused on something beyond him. 'Ginny -- Ginny, I'm so sorry,' he whispered. 'I just ... I don't remember what happened, but I think I ...' He swallowed, ducking his head momentarily. 'I think I got you all killed.' Her lip began to quiver, and fresh tears welled up. She raised a shaking hand to wipe them away, and as she did, a whispering began to build. Quiet and low pitched, it was still obvious that the voice belonged to Mrs. Weasley. '... frightened ... Ginny ...' Ginny extended a hand towards him, beseeching, and he caught for it, not caring that his fingers would go straight through hers, so desperate for even the illusion of contact that it didn't matter. Their fingers met, interlocking, and they both gasped in unison. 'Mum!' she shouted, and this time, her voice and mouth were working as one. Harry held on to her, warmth spreading through his hand, through his body, willing her to stay even as she began to fade. Her face blurred, melted into nothing, followed by her shoulders, soft pink skin and bright red hair blending into homogonous white as he watched. Her hand was the last thing to lose form, leaving him with a memory of pressure against his fingertips, soft and warm. He heard laughter behind him, and he turned to see a man lounging in the common room entrance. He was tall and lithe, and arrogantly good looking, dressed in robes of darkest black, a Slytherin House scarf draped incongruously, yet elegantly, around his neck. Tom Riddle. Voldemort. Older, much older, than the Tom Riddle of the diary, but still recognisable. His face was handsome, yet somehow warped; red-rimmed eyes and a thin-lipped mouth, twisted into a sneer even though he was smiling. Evil radiated off of him, but along with the sense of menace, there was a charisma, a sick kind of charm. Dumbledore had told Harry that Voldemort was a charismatic man, had to be to inspire the kind of loyalty his Death Eaters displayed, but Harry had never believed it, until now. He glared at Voldemort, refusing to be intimidated, his fingers repeatedly clenching and unclenching around his wand. Anger exploded in him, and he forced it back down, resisting the urge to curse Voldemort in a dozen different ways. The man didn't seem to be in any great hurry to duel; his arms were folded across his chest, and his smile had turned into a self-satisfied smirk. 'What do you want?' Harry spat. 'Come to finish the job off? Not killed enough kids recently?' Voldemort just kept grinning at him, like an indulgent uncle, making Harry itch to knock the patronising git on his arse. It'd be much more satisfying to lay into him with feet and fists. A wand was too clean, too clinical. He wanted to feel the snap of bone, see the spurt of blood ... He went as far as to take a step forward, and stopped himself. What was he thinking? He couldn't just walk up to Voldemort and punch him, as tempting as it was. 'What are you doing to me?' he hissed. 'Stop messing with my head.' Voldemort shrugged, turned his back to Harry to leave. Just as he stepped through the portrait hole, he twisted around to face Harry again, this time wearing his true face, foul, hairless and reptilian, overlaid on Tom's fine features, the smirk now an obscene snarl, his eyes the colour of blood. Then he was gone, Disapparating with a loud crack. Harry let his body shudder hard once, twice, before quelling his reaction and forcing himself to calm down. He couldn't afford the luxury of being able to go to pieces. He still didn't have any idea of what was happening, but until he did, he had to be constantly alert, in control. He pushed his sweaty hair back off of his forehead, and froze. His scar was gone, his fingers moving over soft, unblemished skin, instead of a welt of scar tissue. A mirror hung over one of the fireplaces, and he stepped in front of it. Bewildered, he stared at his reflection. The Harry in the mirror was ghostly white, his head wrapped in a bandage, and big, black bruises ringed his eyes. Harry ran his hand over his head and face, unable to feel the injuries that the mirror showed him. He felt normal, despite all evidence to the contrary. Pulling his gaze away from the mirror, he tried to think about the events of the previous day. He knew it was a Sunday, so he hadn't attended any lessons, but that was it. No memory of breakfast, or if he'd played Wizard Chess, or walked down by the lake. The day had been wiped out of his memory. Voldemort had been poking around in his head; that much was evident in the red haze of fury that had descended over Harry. It seemed that messing with Harry's emotions wasn't the only thing he'd done. So what had he made Harry forget? And why?
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