Chapter Summary: Harriet has woken up from her dream and is on the Hogwarts Express heading to Headquarters for the Winter Holiday.

WARNING: there were two chapters uploaded at once instead of the usual single chapter. If you have not read Chapter 8 you need to go back.

Chapter 9: A Train Rides With Friends

Shutting her eyes Harriet tried to block out the world of the waking to keep her thoughts anchored to the world she'd just left.

She hadn't been in her inner mindscape but it had been modeled after it. She remembered because of the sky and the cold and the landscape. She'd been enjoying the snow when there was something about a snowflake? She'd gone to touch it and…. And the memory was already fading.

While keeping her eyes closed she rushed to pull out her dream journal. Harriet found her bookmark and opened to the next blank page. It was only once she was ready to write that she opened her eyes so they opened directly onto the page and let them focus on nothing else. She got to work writing as much as she could remember which was depressingly little. Already it felt more like a story she'd been told than something she'd experienced for herself. The harder she tried to remember the more frustrated she became with how little she could recall. As her frustration mounted the itch on the tip of her nose spread out over the bridge. When she reached her parents graves but couldn't remember where they had been located in the graveyard it spread even further to cover her cheeks and forehead. When she couldn't remember if there had been a doe with her mother as there had been a stag with her father it moved out over to cover her scalp. Harriet refused to scratch. She would focus on recording what little she could. Every detail she could scrounge up would be written down until it all faded entirely.

"Oh sorry Harriet, did we wake you," Hermione asked guiltily.

It was only for a second but in that second Harriet's attention was pulled away from remembering her dream. She looked up just long enough to see Neville elbow Hermione with a reproachful look before holding his finger to his lips in a reminder to leave Harriet alone until she was done. Hermione rolled her eyes but obligingly kept her peace. Smiling in amusement at her friends Harriet looked back down at her journal and her smile fell right off her face. She stared down at her journal and couldn't even remember what she'd been writing about and why. She looked back at the last line she'd written. Ice me with Hedwig… what on earth did that mean?

Reaching up Harriet was about to scratch at her face but stopped when instead of her seeing her hand as she expected she saw something large and brown. She felt foolish when she realized it was her hand, only her hand in a glove. She'd never worn gloves before as she didn't need them to keep warm but this pair wasn't for keeping her warm. This pair were enchanted to help keep her cool. Snape had gotten them for her and prescribed her to wear them at all times outside of classes and when Umbridge might see them. While the cooling charm placed on them only mildly helped with her problem, the sight and foreign feel of soft leather had been doing its job in helping to deter her from absently giving in to the desire to scratch.

Sighing Harriet dropped her hand and focused on bookmarking her journal for the next time before putting it away. From the neck up she was a patchwork of itchy parts with some milder irritation coming from the places where the cooling charms on her clothes were helping. What she wouldn't give to used that freezing curse. But, she'd made a promise and she intended to keep it.

With her journal out of sight Hermione asked, "All finished?"

"All done," Harriet admitted unhappily before trying to shake her melancholy off. Once they reached the station this would be the last she saw of her friends until the holiday was over with Luna going on a trip with her father, Hermione off as well with her parents, and Neville spending Christmas with his Grandmother and many undesirable relatives. Given this was the last they would see of each other for some time Harriet didn't want to bring it down by being in a tude. "Are you two just heading out for your rounds?"

It hadn't been a surprise to anyone when Hermione had been named one of Gryffindor's fifth year Perfects and not much of a surprise to most when Neville received the other spot. Ron did have a chip on his shoulder about it for a time though. It wasn't that he didn't think Neville deserved it. He was just sore about not being seen as good enough. Once he saw just how much Neville was expected to do the resentment vanished as Ron reveled in his lack of responsibilities.

"We're heading back out again actually. We were just checking in on you before we left," Neville explained.

Harriet's brow furrowed in confusion. "But." Last she remembered they'd only just gotten back from their Perfects' meeting. The trolly lady hadn't even been by.

A loud bang sounded from down the train and the carriage gave a little rattle. Harriet drew her wand fearing it was another attack like the dementors in third year.

"What on earth is it now," Hermione demanded. She started to lean her head out into the corridor to investigate but quickly was forced to abort. She reared back into the compartment as one of the twin's fireworks in the form of about a dozen pixies whizzed past.

Harriet sighed settling back into her seat but Hermione was not so relieved. Her face was pinched, her hair puffed up, and her hand flexed around her wand. With a fierceness that would have been concerning if it was anyone else saying the words, Hermione declared, "I'm going to murder the twins," before stalking off down the hall.

After a moment Harriet could clearly hear her yelling, "What do you think you're doing," with an emphasis on the do. After that the words became unclear but the tone and who was speaking was very much still recognizable.

Poor Neville was wincing. At Harriet's questioning look he explained, "The twins all but sold out of their stock the first hour we were on bored. People were eager to buy and indulge themselves now that we're out from Umbridge's thumb. What money they didn't save for sweets they handed over for prank goods. Once they were out of their normal stock the twins started selling their experimental products at a discount in exchange for feedback. With everyone blowing off steam it has made plenty of work for us. Even the older years who are use to Perfect duties seem over whelmed."

Down the train there was another loud bang.

"I'm sure George and Fred are thrilled," Harriet said smirking out at the corridor.

With a resigned sigh Neville agreed. "They are absolutely thrilled and that's only serving to make Hermione more riled."

He looked out nervously at the corridor. "I'll see you later. I'm not sure we'll make it back before we get to the station. We'll find you on the platform," he called as he left moving to assist Hermione, or save someone from her. Harriet could see it going either way.

Processing what he'd just said Harriet turned to Luna. "Is it really that late?"

"You were asleep for several hours," Luna explained. "You haven't missed much. Once Hermione and Neville left for rounds Ron got bored. People from the D.A. have been stopping by but when they saw you were asleep they didn't stay. They've claimed all the carriages around us. I think they were feeling protective knowing you couldn't defend yourself."

Harriet rolled her eyes. She was sure that they had all stayed to be around each other and socialize. Luna was the one who had stayed to protect her and was likely projecting. For someone so intuitive sometimes Luna could be very disconnected in her understanding of others.

"Ron went off with the first who stopped by. He took food with him. It seemed a good thought so I've been sharing with everyone who comes," Luna said gesturing to the picnic basket besides her, "but we haven't made much of a dent I'm afraid."

Getting up Harriet made her way over to see what all was left. The picnic basket had been supplied to them on Snape's orders. He'd given this order to Dobby to fill as he trusted the elf to insure Harriet wasn't given anything tainted. True to form Dobby had gone above and beyond, packing them a veritable feast. Along with the basket Snape had sent a notes telling her she was not to indulge off the trolly. She was only to eat 'proper' food which they could trust had not been tampered with.

On top of the selection on offer Harriet found a tin of treacle tart. She very dearly wanted it but Snape had told her she was to limit her sugar intake. A part of her wanted to think he was just trying to make her life a little more miserable but his explanations as to why he wanted her to avoid sugar and breads and other things until they knew how they would effect her system seemed reasonable. And he wasn't banning anything besides trolly goods. He just wanted her to limit herself. Knowing Mrs Weasley would be stuffing them all for the holidays Harriet reluctantly returned the treacle and reached instead for a container of roasted vegetables.

Grabbing herself a fork she tried very hard to ignore the itch which for the moment was focused on the back of her skull, her right eyelid, and upper lip.

There was a flash of magic besides her as Luna cast a spell her way.

Harriet shivered as wonderful perfect bone chilling cold consumed her from the outside in. She reveled in the relief for a moment before sending Luna a reproachful look. "I promised I wouldn't use that curse any longer."

Luna tucked her wand back behind her ear while blinking at Harriet vacantly like she didn't understand why her friend was displeased but Harriet wasn't fooled but the act of obliviousness.

"You didn't use it. I did," Luna excused like it was that simple.

Harriet kept staring Luna down with a hard look.

"There's no point in you suffering when you don't have to. Things will be bad enough over your Christmas break with Professor Snape's tutoring you and Padfoots reaction to having him around. You should have peace while you can."

Harriet frowned. Staring off into space she let herself imagine it. "Padfoot's going to kick up such a fuss," she admitted dismally. "Hopefully Dumbledore's already told him and he'll be through the worse of it by now. If not…"

Harriet suddenly had the image of Sirius, cursed with a dog's tail and ears, getting his revenge on Snape with a bat-bogey hex. Given how immature the two could be, especially about each other, she really wouldn't be surprised. Sirius in particular embarrassed himself greatly whenever Snape was around with how hard he clung on to their boyhood insults. They were as bad as Ron and Draco. She was a little scared that Mrs Weasley was right that boys never did grow up. John seemed past such things so there was some hope for the rest. At least Neville she felt was already on his way to growing up even if the others were still lagging behind.

"Shall we try figuring out what your dream was about," Luna offered.

Tired and grateful Harriet smiled at her. "You're my favorite, you know that."

Luna smiled back at her but corrected, "After John but that's all right. Daddy's my favorite so you're my second as well. Being best friends is more than enough."

Harriet's smile only grew. "Best of friends," she agreed pulling out her dream journal so they could try to make some sense of it. She didn't have much hope though. Usually you needed every word of a riddle if you were going to wind up at the right answer. With how much Harriet had failed to write down there had to be much they were missing.

Oneiromancy, the method of interpreting dreams. When they started studying it in Divination the others had fallen somewhere between bored or intrigued by the unit. For someone like Ron who wasn't a seer and -despite according to the other boys, being a sleep talker- barely remembered anything he dreamed, having to keep a journal and make any kind of meaningful interpretation of his entries was a chore. It wasn't long before he was simply making up his dreams. The only time he asked Harriet to do the interpretations for him she'd agreed as it was good practice. She hadn't however given Ron her actual interpretations to hand in. Instead she'd given him a rather embarrassing bit of falsehood which Trelawney brought up in class when reviewing their assignments. It had been a productive exercise all around. Harriet got to interpret some dreams, Ron was forever learned the importance of doing his own work, and they were all reminded to read what was handed to you instead of taking someone's word for it.

For Harriet studying oneiromancy was a revelation. All her childhood she had been plagued with experiences of déjà vu. Little Harriet would always be getting the feeling that something had already happened or that she'd done all this before. The night Hagrid arrived to deliver her Hogwarts letter she had the sense that she already knew him. Despite his intimidating size and the nature of his arrival, the first time she looked at Hagrid she new he was a friend. When Hagrid told her he was the one to deliver her to the Dursleys she'd assumed that was her answer. All her life she'd been assigning 'reasonable' explanations as to how she might have dreamed things ahead of time like finding out Mrs Figg had broken her leg, all the Durlseys catching a cold, or what her new teacher would look like al ahead of schedule. Harriet assumed it was normal to dream about living the next day before waking up to live it.

It had taken studying dreams and specifically seers dreams for Harriet to realize that her experiences were different to others. When you live your whole life with things one way and have no mirror to compare it to others, you just assume your normal is everyone else's. Once she started she became religious in keeping her dream journal and figuring out the patterns and ways that her sight influenced her dreams, how truth blended with fiction and symbolism then how to separate the parts. She figured out the formula but to do it she needed to remember all the elements of her dreams. That had never been a problem in the past. She was used to filling at least one journal a month with each usually lasting about three weeks. Her memories of her dreams had always been as clear as her memories of her waking hours which as a child with the prophetic nature of her dreams sometimes left her very confused between reality and the makings of her mind. It had gotten her in trouble with the Dursleys she didn't need but in time she'd learned to tell the difference and keep it clear in her head.

The first time she had any trouble was over the summer before fourth year with her dreams about the happenings around Voldemort. Her memories from those dreams always felt different to her other experiences. She realized later that this was because she wasn't herself there. She was observing the world through Nagini's perspective. As a snake she didn't look at or take in her surroundings in the same way Harriet did. Understanding that made it clear what she was dealing with at the moment wasn't of the same vein. While those dreams had been different she had no problem remembering them.

After Voldemort's resurrection the dreams with Nagini ceased. Harriet had a summer full of sleep where she dreamed as she normally would. Then school had started up again. For months she hadn't realized anything was off. It was Professor Trelawney asking her whether her dreams had given any insight into Umbridge that had been the first domino towards Harriet realizing something had changed. When she was asked Harriet couldn't remember. When she went to check her journals she realized there was almost nothing written there. Pages and pages of frustrating lacking entries and all in the same journal she'd been using since the start of the year. There were some days where she'd written nothing at all without ever realizing it. Making her entries were so much a part of her routine and yet there were days on days with nothing.

That was what worried Harriet most. It wasn't just that she was forgetting her dreams. It was that somehow she'd been unaware of the problem for so long. Within minutes if she was distracted enough she wouldn't even remember if she dreamed unless there was an entry to prove to her she had. Months of nothing were in her head. Perhaps what was worse was that every spell and test they'd done said there was no reason for it. No ailments. No curses. No potion dosing. No poisoning. No jinxes. No infection of Nargles or any of the other creatures anyone in their group could think of.

Trelawney thought she might be forgetting her dreams because she was seeing futures that weren't coming to pass and what could never be was unable to stick in her mind. "These are turbulent times my dear. We can't trust anything to stay fast. Not even our Hogwarts." Unfortunately this was all the advice Trelawney had to give on the matter. Her mind was tangled up in worrying about Umbridge and where her own future lay. She had Harriet reading her almost every day in the hopes of some news that could provide some assurance that things would be okay. Unfortunately Harriet wasn't seeing that to give it honestly.

Luna was not as troubled as Trelawney about the future. When Ginny asked her how she could be so unconcerned with things being the way they were, Luna answered, "I have faith in Harriet." She was equally untroubled by Harriet's lapse in memory. Luna felt she should trust in herself and not be so worried. Her friend assured her that when she was meant to begin remembering again she would.

Hermione advised research. Despite all the predictions and readings Harriet and Luna both had done which provided some evidence to the merit of divination, Hermione was still a skeptic when it came to the sight or predicting the future with anything more than numbers and facts. They were both taking arithmancy since the start of third year. The subject had only helped Harriet to embrace her sight. Unfortunately the maths and form and logic of arithmancy's methods -where divination was lacking- only turned Hermione against divination all the more. Harriet tried to explain to her that just because it didn't make sense to Hermione didn't mean in the grand design their wasn't sense to it but it did not good.

Just like with everything else regarding divination Hermione tried her best to find 'logical' explanations, to downplay, and dismiss. At first she had insisted that dreams were the minds way of processing and Harriet was likely forgetting her dreams in the normal way. When it became obvious it was something more her opinion evolved to believing the trouble with Harriet's dreams lay with Voldemort the same as the dreams she'd had the summer before. Despite Harriet saying that it didn't feel like something invasive or bad in the way her connection to Voldemort hurt and made her feel violated in the past Hermione insist the best day to deal with that was to find ways of protecting Harriet from that connection. After Snape diagnosed Harriet's itching problem as being the result of that connection Hermione felt supported what she'd been saying all along. That his diagnoses supported her own made her readily willing to dismiss Harriet's doubts.

The three most prominent female figures in her life each had an incredibly different world view. They were the three she went to most for guidance. The maiden, the mother, and the crone but which was which and who had the right of it? Like with most things Harriet thought it was probably a mix of the three.

Her gut told her to borrow some of Luna's faith in her. To trust things would work out in the end, but it was so frustrating to rely on faith and patience and to set her negative emotions to the side. Those things had never been easy for her. She was not a person with immense patience, she was not good at putting aside her anger or resentments or fear or pain, and her life hadn't given her much reason to trust things to work out in a way she could be pleased with.

Her parents had gone into hiding. They trusted their friend and he betrayed them leading to their deaths. Sirius had handed her over to Hagrid trusting she would be looked after with Dumbledore in charge. He'd confronted Pettigrew only to fail and when the system failed him he'd spent years in Azkaban for it while men like Malfoy went free. The only reason he wasn't still there was because he escaped and it wasn't truly like he was free as he had to fear going out for if he was caught he would be killed. And those were only the things that hadn't happened to her personally. What happened to her made her faith in things working out even worse.

Sure, Voldemort had never gotten the stone but in the time he was trying to get it unicorns had been killed and who knew what else he had gotten up to at the school during that time. And yes, she and Ron had been the only students to get hurt because of the stone being kept at Hogwarts -that they knew of- but there had also been the troll let loose. Hermione nearly died! They all nearly died. Then the following year several students had to spend months petrified, she nearly died again, Ginny nearly died, and the person who arranged all this, Lucius Malfoy, got off scot free despite board governors confessing to being blackmailed and threatened! Harriet could go on. Sometimes she couldn't help but to go on. Her friends had heard many a rant about the things she found to be wrong with the world and specifically life at Hogwarts. Most recently Umbridge, Dumbledore's lack of action, and her dreams were the main things she went off about. The itch she preferred not to talk about as it only made it worse.

Ron was sympathetic to her frustrations but didn't think letting her rant and worry and dwell on it was the solution. Whenever she went off on a tangent he would change the topic to get her mind on other things. Being raised in the magical world he had much more trust in magic and with it divination than Hermione did. He felt Harriet should listen to Luna and Trelawney on the matter as they were the experts. As for Hermione's advice he pointed out to her that actually Harriet had been dreaming from the snakes perspective. Not Voldemort's. Given that, he didn't see how her scar and her connection to Voldemort could be the cause. It sounded like animal possession to him which while not a skill Harriet had shown in the past, it was connected to astral projection and scrying which Harriet had gotten very good at. The resulting argument between the two had ended with Ron dragging Hermione off to the section of the library that had books on the matter saying maybe she'd believe her precious books since she wouldn't listen to him. Eventually they'd moved past their hard feeling though neither ever apologized or admitted to being wrong.

Neville agreed with Ron and Luna but felt that looking into ways of protecting her from Voldemort wasn't such a bad idea. Still being a good friend he dug into his herbology expertise to help her research any plants she could remember from her dreams and to compiled a list of every plant, flower, algae, moss, and fungi that had any association to sleep, dreaming, or memory. Since gillyweed had saved the day in the second task Harriet had hoped something he provided her would provide some miracle answer but there was no such luck from anything she'd been able to try as of yet.

Sirius apologized for having no idea about divination or dreams. He'd never taken that elective and never looked into it on his own. When he'd been in school the subject had ben considered all but dead with only a few students taking it as it wasn't the easy grade it had become known to be. At the time the Professor who taught Divination was known for being very old, very strict, and very grim. Only those with a real interest took the class and quite a few would drop it some time later with a scant few holding out for their NEWTs. The only seers Sirius had known personally were Harriet and through her Luna. Personally Harriet thought the two were related. There were probably people out there with weak sight. Maybe if it had been recognized they could have reached their full potential through training it. Harriet knew she was bias but she really thought everyone should take a crash course in Divination just to see it they sparked with any of the practices. They had flying lessons in first year. Why not a quick run through of the different electives in second before kids had to pick.

Sirius had promised to enlist Remus in checking the Black Library for answers but as of yet had not gotten back to her. Harriet had a feeling he'd put it off until he'd forgotten. It was a bit irritated by that but she didn't really blame him for not making it a priority. She'd only mentioned the problem in passing on a night when they actually managed a mirror chat. Most of the time Harriet was too busy to steal a private moment unless she was in the room of requirement and she didn't want to call him from there because then she would have had to admit just how many problems she was dealing with and how severe some of them were turning out to be.

Harriet suspected she'd be getting an earful about holding back at the house later.

As the train pulled into King Cross Station she closed her eyes and made a wish for a good holiday. She thought about all the people she cared about, the ones who would be with her and those who would not, and wished for them all to have a good break. She thought of all the staff and the students she didn't know personally who had to deal with Umbridge and wished the same for them. From Harriet hundreds of magical strands were formed. Floating through air and objects alike they went looking for their their intendeds while one little strand remained behind for Harriet. The Fates eager snatched up this second blessing their Mistress had gifted to herself and prepared to make us of it and the rest as they found their recipients.

Luna watched the strands form and travel with eye. No other eyes could see them but to her it was a beautiful sight. As on floated over to her she raised a hand, not to capture it but to give the little blessing a place to land. She was touched to have received such a thing from her friend and watched as the other strands went off as well. If she had not known what was happening she might have been scared, but she had received warnings in the form of a prophecies which Trelawney routinely had delivered when Luna stayed behind to talk to her after class.

She hoped everyone enjoyed their present from Harriet as much as she expected she would enjoy her own.

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Closing Author's Note: To clear up any confusion caused by the last two chapters, Harriet remembers her dreams with Voldemort while she is in them. Those "dreams" exist in a mindscape created by Voldemort and controlled by him. He has put measures in place so she won't remember them when she wakes up. She would not have known anything was going on had Voldemort not unintentionally affected her ability to remember her normal prophetic dreams as well. This is why he ordered Snape not to actually teach her how to protect her mind as she'd noticed something is wrong. If she actually started learning she might be able to interfere with the block he's put up to keep her memories repressed and stored in her subconscious until he's ready for her to remember.

I know some people didn't like the Voldemort chapter ending with Harriet waking up and not getting to see it. That was a set up for Harriet forgetting her dreams. It was meant to make people question how Harriet could have smiled at Voldemort rather than being angry. Hopefully now that you know part of what is going on you're okay with it.