a/n: Gilderoy is an annoying name. Maybe I shall find an excuse to call him Roy in future, just to save me the trouble of typing that thing out. I AM FREE OF MY TESTS! I did not have to bury myself either! And so now you get my I'm-so-full-of-gratefulness update! I'm happy for you. Really I am.

The pleasantly cool breeze whipped lightly through his hair as he added another stroke to the canvas. He was out back in the garden, sweating a little in concentration, but it was good, healthy sweat. He couldn't feel any better.

The thirteen year-old boy's heart was completely taken over by a heady, wondrous feeling of joy as he dabbed life into the pale red and yellow flowers, remaking them on the canvas where they would live on, far past the time when they would wither and make way for winter's cruel reign.

He was taking advantage of the freedom that came with being left alone for an afternoon at home. The mansion was too much for him, too filled with unpleasant feelings lingering on the air, waiting to prey on him.

Of course, he would not have dared to do this had his father been home. His father was an intimidating figure, and if he found that his only son had been caught painting or creating any other work of art, something that he had expressly made clear was strictly forbidden…the boy shuddered at the thought of what might happen then.

It was always possible a servant might catch him at it, but the boy was too desperate for this pleasure, the way he had of taking something beautiful and recreating it to be somehow even more beautiful than it had been to begin with. Making it his.

There was nothing in the world to match the feeling he got when he had finished a picture or painting, and looking at it almost surprisedly, he would realize that he had made this. This was him.

Of course the time was ticking until he would have to hurry up to the extra walk-in closet which adjoined with his room, and which no one used. He would then have to hide the canvas and paints under the floorboards he had pried up when shut in the closet for an hour one rainy day as punishment. (Coincidentally, this was for accidentally bringing up the subject of art at the dinner table).

The boy thought of the sketch pads, quills, charcoal, and ink that were also stored under these boards, and thought how upsetting it was to create such beams of light, only to have them hidden in the darkness, where no one could see them. He couldn't even look at them at his leisure for fear of being caught at it.

4:30. The boy snapped out of his peaceful reverie. He had been sitting with his head tilted back and a small, vague smile of contentment on his face. He had been taking longer than he had thought!

Jumping up in one fluid motion, Gilderoy gathered up his materials carefully, albeit quickly, and speed walked down the garden path, eyes darting warily up to the great windows of the looming mansion and back to his load of supplies every once in a while. Then he reached the door, and the dark of the house swallowed him up. Where no one could see him.

But someone had.

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Someone was shaking him, had been shaking him for perhaps some time.

"Gilderoy, get on up with you. There's something you've got to do."

Gilderoy opened his eyes reluctantly. His eyelids felt heavy and lazy. Healer Loell was looking at him sharply.

"Were you dreaming?" she asked very tentatively. She had been asking him this for the past couple of nights when he awoke spontaneously, as if always expecting that this was exactly what he was doing if he made any strange movements or sounds in his sleep.

"No. I mean…yes. I believe I was."

"Not bad, was it?"

"Oh no."

"Why do you say it like that?"

"Why did you wake me up? I liked that sleep, I did."

"Don't get testy. It won't do you a bit of good for what's coming up." Ad's voice became gentler as she told him her business. "You will be discussing your dreams with Healer Brodyn and I today. It may be hard to recall everything, but we are trying to figure out how these dreams manage to be so persistent. Hopefully, we can find a way to make them less bothersome."

"I don't find them bothersome." Gilderoy's voice faltered on this a bit, however, and Ad noticed it.

"Gilderoy, no one likes to be plagued by dreams like these. Maybe not all of them are bad, as far as content goes, but we are afraid that they will hurt your recovery."

Ah, of course. His recovery from the Accident. Gilderoy couldn't help feeling a bit bitter. Maybe this was from being awakened at four in the morning, but possibly there were other reasons as well.

"You don't think I've recovered at all," he said quietly.

"Well," Ad told him fairly, "I wouldn't say that. You do seem to have a better sense of self-identity now than you did a month ago."

Healer Brodyn appeared next to Loell, and whispered something in her ear, before turning to Gilderoy and straightening his spectacles. Brodyn was a man who looked older than he really was. He was tall and lean with gray hair but could not be any older than forty, Gilderoy thought. He had never really liked Brodyn much; when Gilderoy had first arrived at the closed ward, Brodyn had been the one to receive him and the first person to greet him when he had awoken the next day with no idea of who he was, where he was, or anything.

As a result, he had been unnaturally cheery. (Ignorance will do this to you). Brodyn had been very terse and official with Gilderoy, telling him only where he was and his name, and not answering any of his other questions like Did Brodyn's head hurt like his did? Did everyone's head have a bump on it? Was this his house? Why was he sitting here? What was the broken stick he had found in his pocket? In some cases, first impressions mean everything.

Brodyn looked over Gilderoy critically before speaking.

"You've been having bad dreams, I hear," he said. It was not a question.

"They aren't all bad," Gilderoy said, toying with his sheets.

"You can't know that for sure," Brodyn said repressively. "Over half of the content of a dream is lost for good once the dreamer wakes. You have been seen to experience restlessness in your sleep."

Gilderoy felt incensed, for maybe the first true time in his remembered life (which admittedly, was not long). For some reason, Brodyn's statement had gotten on his nerves.

"I remember everything about every 'dream' I've had here," he said boldly, feeling a ridiculous sense of naughtiness. Even though he knew what he was saying was the truth, Gilderoy couldn't look directly at the Healer as he spoke. Brodyn didn't believe him, as expected.

"Well," he said evenly, "If you can remember everything you dreamed, why don't you tell us all about it?"

Gilderoy remained silent. He didn't want to tell Brodyn about the dreams. In fact, he felt afraid to do so.

"Why are you hesitating to call them dreams, Gilderoy?" Ad asked him.

He thought on this. "They seem too…personal to me to be dreams. Remember how I told you about how everything seemed so real in the first dream I had? It's been that way with the last two as well, and they seemed so real that right now I remember every bit of them and they feel too personal to tell anyone."

Ad looked hesitant, then thoughtful. Brodyn however, only looked satisfied. Nodding, he scribbled something on the clipboard he carried before looking down at Gilderoy once again.

"Well, I suppose that's all I have to inquire about at the moment, Mr. Lockhart," he said in a superior sort of way. His tone became very stern all of a sudden as he said "And you will take the 100 Dreamless Draught every night without fail from now on. I mean it, do you understand? We have prescribed it to you for a reason."

"But I have been taking it!" Gilderoy said, feeling frustrated.

Brodyn looked astounded and angry. "You must learn not to lie so often, Gilderoy," he said slowly. "You may go back to bed now. I'm sure you're tired." Then he turned and left, Healer Loell following him.

But Gilderoy had never felt less like sleeping. Morning was coming anyway, and the ward was very silent. The patients in the beds around him were all sound asleep, and the two Healers were now elsewhere.

That was when Gilderoy had an idea that made his blood race. He had been waiting for a silent, still moment in the hospital, which was rare indeed, for the day or so.

At his last writing lesson with Healer Elleyne, Gilderoy had managed to get her to give him a few sheets of thick parchment paper, telling her he would put it to good use by writing letters.

Now, sliding one of these pieces of paper out from under his pillow, Gilderoy retrieved a quill from his bedside table and paused, the quill trembling in his hand, which was poised above the paper.

Closing his eyes, taking a breath and opening them, Gilderoy drew a fat line across the paper, then made another line, and another and another, striving to create what he saw in his mind's eye. Quicker and quicker his quill sped across the parchment, in quick yet unsure strokes.

Gilderoy leaned over his bed, perched on the edge of his bed and scribbled like mad. His breathing was coming in and out very fast, and his chest was heaving. Suddenly he let out a short, strangled yell of frustration, and scribbled messily all over the paper, drawing a large X over the whole thing, so hard that it cut clean through.

The paper floated down to the floor where it lay, messy side down on the ground. It sat there as if making a statement. The slashes in the parchment stood out just as clearly as the tears in Gilderoy's eyes as he sat, breathing slowing down, eyes averted from the place where it lay.

Outside, in the world which he couldn't remember existing, it was starting to snow.