Chapter 9

The rest of Harry's first day at Hogwarts passed incredibly slowly. Potions was a nightmare. They entered class late, and so they were partnered at Slughorn's mercy. Ron was with Hermione (Harry thought he saw him saying a brief prayer of thanks when this occurred) and Harry was with Snape. His friends sent him looks of sympathy before pulling out their potions supplies and beginning on the assignment on the board.

Snape barely glanced up when Harry sat down beside him. He was rifling through his supply kit and didn't even look at Harry as he said, "Potions is my subject, you understand? Nothing or no one messes this up for me. So unless you're the Mozart of Potions, you shut up and do what I say, got it?"

Harry hated Snape. He more than hated him- he loathed him with a passion. But he had been three steps away from worshipping the Half Blood Prince in sixth year, so he had to grudgingly admit that Snape was amazing when it came to potions. As long as Harry followed his orders, he'd pass the class, or at least this potion. So instead of snapping at Snape as he longed to do, he simply nodded mutely.

Snape hadn't looked over at Harry, so chances were good that he hadn't seen the nod. He must have expected nothing less, though, for he immediately handed Harry a knife. "Start cutting the sopophorous beans."

Harry raised an eyebrow. Clearly Snape hadn't discovered all the tricks Harry had found in his Potions book yet. "Do we need the most juice possible?"

"Yes," Snape snapped, glaring sidelong at Harry.

"Well, then," Harry replied, feeling immensely superior. "I'll need your silver knife."

"Why?" once more, Snape was snapping at Harry.

Harry didn't wait for the knife to be handed to him; he simply reached over and grabbed it. Temporary theft. It was only a little bit of payback for the years of being tortured by Snape. He began crushing the bean with the flat side of the knife (it was the only trick from Snape's potion book that he could remember off the top of his head). "Crush the bean with the flat side of a silver knife. It gives out more juices than just cutting."

Snape watched in interest, but said nothing. Later, when he thought that Harry wasn't watching, he made a note inside his book.

Lunch was the bright spot in Harry's day. He had chosen to sit with Lily and her friends, partly because there were no open seats beside the Marauders, and partly because he knew so much less about his mother than his father. Elaina was off gossiping with a group of Hufflepuffs, so it was really only Harry, Lily, and Arnau.

About halfway through the meal, Elaina had returned and was busy telling them about the third year Slytherin she had run into earlier. "So he's talking to me, right? And he must have been smoking his Potions stash or something because he just keeps talking about the purple mice that have invaded the school and how they're the generals of all these legions of scale-less iguanas determined to rid the world of magic. I turn around, start to walk away, when he calls to me. Says, 'Wait! I haven't shown you my rendition of Footloose!' So I turned around, mainly to ask him if he really knew what Footloose was, you know, make sure he doesn't think Kevin Bacon is what Sirius calls his breakfast, and he's floating twelve feet in the air, ballet dancing! Then…" her voice trailed off and her eyes were locked on the front of the Great Hall.

The food at the teacher's table began to rise. Little pieces of bread fell away from the turkey sandwich until it resembled a man. It then bowed to a dish of mustard, the mustard lifted out of the dish, and the two began to dance around each other. A few slices of cucumbers joined in, followed by a piece of ham, and soon all the food was in a line, dancing behind a man-shaped sandwich with fruit salad on its head. After nearly a full circle around the table, it all separated and began to dance individually.

Dumbledore was perhaps the most amused person at that table. He watched the food before him, his blue eyes shining more than usual and his grin much larger. Slughorn was bowing in return to a slice of pizza hovering below his nose, a teacher Harry hadn't met yet was swaying her head in time to the music she was humming, and McGonagall was watching the Marauders warily.

James and Sirius noticed her gaze. They grinned at her cheerfully, waving to show her their wandless hands.

And then the food went mad. The mustard threw itself at McGonagall's face, the cucumbers began embedding themselves in Dumbledore's beard, the mayonnaise was painting Slughorn's hair white, and all the various sandwiches in the air hurled themselves at random tables in the Great Hall, managing to completely avoid all of the Gryffindors.

Laughter erupted. McGonagall stood up, slowly and deliberately wiping her face off with a cloth napkin. "Potter? Black?" her voice was icy calm.

"Yes?" the two chorused, looking expectantly toward their teacher.

"You know the time, and you know the place. Be there- for the next week!" she calmly sat down, picked a now inanimate sandwich up, and bit off its head.

Down the table, Harry could see James and Sirius grinning and shooting glances at McGonagall. Her sandwich exploded in her hands, tiny bits of bread, meat, and cheese flying toward her face. "Two weeks!" she called, almost in a sing-song voice, not glancing up but rather popping one of the larger pieces of meat into her mouth.

Beside Harry, Lily was shaking her head. "Immature," she muttered, lifting up her goblet to hide her tiny smile.

After lunch, Harry had a free period, so he went out for a walk around the lake,

G.

The path from Hogsmeade to Hogwarts was embedded in Ginny's memory. Her feet took her along it on their own accord, since her brain wasn't doing much to help out. She couldn't stop thinking about what she had seen at Hogsmeade. There were lights, and laughter. There had been people and they hadn't looked scared! They had seemed so careless, so happy! It had all been like it was before Voldemort, and the war, and the terror. It was so beautiful.

Yet it made her furious. Why hadn't anybody bothered telling her what was going on? What? Did they think that she wouldn't care if one of the most important places from her school career were to be fixed? Had they thought that she wouldn't want to hear what was going on outside that little house in Italy? Or had they simply forgotten? That was more than likely. So many people busy with their fight against Voldemort, they had simply decided they couldn't bother keeping that little refugee living upstairs in the loop.

Ginny continued to stomp up the path, her anger filling her. This was her home! She had every right to be informed that it was recovering from Voldemort's rampage! She had more of a right to know what was going on than those sheltered idiots running around in Italy! But they hadn't told her. They hadn't- effing- told her! When she saw any of them again, she was going to curse them so hard they won't know an owl from a bowling pin! She was going to-

She stopped dead, her thoughts and her movement jerked to a halt by her shock. She had come to the top of the hill that obscured Hogwarts from view, and now… Hogwarts stood, as majestic and breathtaking as it had been on her first day there. The Astronomy Tower soared against the brightening horizon; the top floor was exquisite, untouched; and the Quidditch stands stood vibrantly around the deep green pitch. This wasn't right. This was perfect, and in this day and age, perfect was never there.

Hogwarts…it shouldn't be like this. It wasn't possible! She had been there, damn it! She had heard the Astronomy Tower fall as her brother pushed her into the fireplace, sending her far away from the attack. She had eavesdropped on the report made to the Order after the attack had ended and the injured tended to. What she was seeing now was…an illusion. It was the result of wandering aimlessly in dark forest without food or water. Not real. Just her mind playing tricks.

But she had accepted that Hogsmeade was truly as she saw it, a small part of her brain informed her. That was different, though! The rebuttal to the first statement made by her brain was instantaneous. What she saw at Hogsmeade- it could have happened! If the people got the will enough, they could have recovered and gone about their lives. Hogwarts… its time had ended. McGonagall had said so herself just days before the Death Eaters got her too.

What was she seeing, though? It was there in front of her, as plain as day. The Hogwarts from her memory. That was it! Ginny grabbed at the explanation eagerly. She was trapped in her mind! Perhaps she was dreaming. Yes, that had to be right. She was still asleep in Italy, trapped in the memories of her life at Hogwarts, of life when it was good. She would wake up and everything would be as it was- a destroyed Hogwarts, a dark Hogsmeade, and a terrified world. Hardly comforting, but that was life.

And then the tears came. Could you cry in a dream? Ginny didn't care to think about it. She was crying so hard that it was borderline sobbing. The tears came from loss. She had lost everything in this war- her school, her home, her family (all of whom were still alive, yet never with her), her life. And here was this dream, reminding her painfully of everything that had been carried away on the tides of war. What right did her mind have? How dare it send her to such a place while she was sleeping, unable to fight it off? Why would her own mind do something that would hurt her so much?

It's just a stupid dream, she thought furiously, swiping the tears away from her eyes. Why was she crying in a dream? And why did her dream decide to drop her off in a forest first, instead of just starting here at Hogwarts?

Ginny shook her head. Such thoughts were ludicrous and irrelevant. And besides, she knew why she was crying; when she had gone to Hogwarts, life had been good (there had been the incident in first year, but other than that she had been happy). She had had friends, and fun, and yes, she did worry a little about Voldemort and what she knew happened to Harry, but it had been fleeting worry. Then the war had started, and everything good in her life was ripped away from her. And if that wasn't bad enough, she wasn't even allowed to help! So she cried because of what Hogwarts represented- the time in her life when happiness was second nature, before she had had her childhood ripped away from her. She cried because she wanted it back, but knew it could never be.

Stupid, stupid dream! She squeezed her eyes shut to stop the tears. She wasn't going to let herself keep crying. She was Ginny Weasley. She was strong. She didn't cry when she was left all alone in the midst of a war, she didn't cry when she stayed up late at night worrying about everyone she loved, she didn't cry when she thought she had been kidnapped and left to die in a forest, and she would not cry now that she realized it was a dream. Her dream had thrown one hell of a curve ball at her tonight, but that was no reason to lose her strength. She wasn't allowed to fight, that strength was all she had. She wouldn't let herself lose it. Not now.

Ginny shook her head and began to walk down the hill toward Hogwarts. She wasn't going to let herself cry, so she might as well do something to distract her until she woke up. Besides, she would love to walk the halls of Hogwarts once more, if only in a dream.

She decided to take the path that would wind around the lake shore rather than the more direct one. She had always loved the lake, had gone out there and sat beneath a tree when she needed time away from people to study. It was beautiful and calming. Her eyes scanned over it now, the surface rippling in the light breeze. There was the rock she had swum out to on a dare the one time, and there- that was where she had watched the second task in the Triwizard Tournament from. There was the giant squid, coming up like it usually did on calm days like this. A ghost of a smile appeared on her face. Had she been happier at Hogwarts than at the Burrow? Probably.

She stopped suddenly. Somebody had just come out the main doors of Hogwarts. There was someone else in her dream? She briefly wondered who her mind had decided to add, then figured she might as well simply wait and see. They would come to her, right? It was her dream, so the people in it should naturally be pulled to her.

Sitting down on a large, flat boulder beside the lake, she decided to wait and find out if that was right. She was obviously incredibly conscious during this dream, if that was at all possible. Maybe some type of lucid dream potion had been slipped into her milk at dinner. Whatever the reason, it might be entertaining to find out just how people in dreams worked while she was capable.

So she waited. The person didn't seem to be coming toward her immediately. Instead, he wandered around almost aimlessly, meandering along the shore and winding through the foliage of the forest. This could take a while, Ginny thought as she lay back against the rock. No matter. She certainly wasn't going to chase after people in her own dream.

H. G.

The lake had looked so inviting when Harry stepped out of the school and had opted for a walk around it. That had always been a great way to clear his head, he remembered. Take a nice stroll around the lake where there was no one to gawk or snap at him. It was usually relatively empty too. Or at least, it had been in his time.

When he had walked perhaps five minutes, he noticed a figure laying on his favorite lakeside rock. A redhead, or so it seemed. Lily? No, that was impossible. She was still probably eating lunch and complaining about James. What other redheads did Hogwarts have? Why did he care? And why was he walking toward this person?

Harry shrugged. Oh well. For whatever reason, he had altered his path so that he would run directly across the person, so why fight it? What would it hurt to meet another person?

He walked another five minutes before getting close enough to the figure to distinguish anything other than the fact that the person was a girl with red hair. As he got closer, though, something in him kept telling him that she looked familiar. She actually looked like… no, that was impossible. Ginny was safe in an Order headquarter. She had better be. If she wasn't, Harry would skin her alive. He caught what he was thinking and chuckled lightly. Ginny wasn't even born yet. She was in no danger. So who was this person who reminded him of her?

His pace increased. He was eager to see who it was. Finally, he was close enough to see her face clearly. He nearly fainted from the shock. He wasn't- she couldn't be- certainly not. "G-Ginny!" his voice was incredulous.

Ginny's eyes snapped open. She knew that voice. She turned eagerly to see him, only to be greeted by the sight of some blond, freckle-faced nobody she had never seen in her life. What was this? Why would her mind send her someone she had never met who sounded like Harry? What was the point in that? She had never been so disappointed in her life. "Who the hell are you?" she snapped.