Chapter 39: Landscaping
A.N. There is no date given for Dumbledore's funeral, but given that he died just before O.W.L.s were slated to begin, I decided that the weekend of June 14-15 was probably the best time for a funeral, particularly as Jo records Lupin as present at the event and the following Friday (June 20) was a full moon.
The wedding is set on June 28th, 1997
Rose's first foray into dreamwalking takes place on July 4, 1997.
From the time the merpeople began to sing while Hagrid carried Dumbledore's body into his funeral, Rose's mind was abstracted. As much as she tried to keep her eyes to the front of the assembly and listen to the words of the various dignified speakers, they kept drifting to the people around her and her thoughts remained with the living.
Fleur, next to her, sat straight and tall in a flawless black frock and neat, dark bonnet. She looked a model of decorum and respectability. Rose had to admire her discipline, for her eyes never wavered from the happenings at the front of the crowd, her hand holding firmly to the inside of Bill's arm. Bill's face may have been irrevocably damaged by Greyback's savage bites and slashes, but his formal dress robes and Fleur's radiant presence beside him made him look something like a decorated war hero.
Rose reflected upon the change that had come over the couple, thinking that it was not just the solemn atmosphere of the funeral and the formal clothing that infused them with such dignity. Ever since the scene at Bill's bedside in the hospital wing the previous week, the two had seemed less like covert young lovers on the margins of a family party and more like adults. Molly's public acceptance of Fleur had conferred a great deal of this dignity. Indeed, the two were in each other's company whenever Bill was not nearby, and often even when he was. "C'est comme je vous l'ai dit," Rose had commented when Bill was being discharged from the hospital wing, "Vous avez gagné son amour en aimant son fils."1
Bill and Fleur looked a stark contrast from the couple who sat directly in front of them. Tonks' hair was a brilliant, but decidedly non-funereal pink that morning, and her black dress, though simple enough, was cut much shorter than was wonted in the wizarding world. Lupin, with whom she held hands, looked a great deal shabbier than Bill. He had worn his neatest olive colored robes, but no spells could quite hide that they had certainly not been purchased that decade. Rose had to fight a smile, however, at the sight of their joined hands. The state of things between them was the brightest light of anything else she could see in this dreadful week.
Rose allowed her mind to return to the scene around Bill's hospital wing bed, when Tonks had lifted her voice against Lupin. "I don't care either, I don't care!" she had shouted into his mortified face in front of the entire assembly of Order and Dumbledore's Army members. The two had left the scene abruptly afterwards, leaving Rose to comfort the young people as best she could. Hermione had sidled up to Rose, welcoming Rose's hugs and reassurances that she was not at fault for remaining at Flitwick's side for so long. Ron had been warming to Rose too. Harry, however, had quickly withdrawn into moody solitude. Only Ginny seemed to be able to coax much talk out of him lately.
It had taken three days for Tonks and Lupin to resurface. Her duties greatly reduced by the diminished number of students who remained after Dumbledore's death, Rose had gone back to her flat in Dalston for Friday and Saturday, planning to return for the funeral on Sunday. She'd only just put her bag in the bedroom and exchanged her shoes for slippers when there was a knock at the door. There was a knock, and then there was a giggle. Then a muffled male voice, followed by an answering female voice and another giggle. Before Rose could even get to the door, Tonks' voice rang out clearly. "Rose! It's us! C'mon, let us in, we've got drinks."
She had let them in without asking security questions, and Lupin did not seem in a mood to urge caution. They tumbled in, both pink cheeked and seemingly deliriously happy (and also, apparently, a bit squiffy).
"Hullo, Rosey, sorry to burst in on you like this. Only, Tonks thought you wouldn't mind." She'd never heard Remus sound quite so giddy.
"Foutaise, Remus, I always want to see friends," she'd told him, waving away his apology. "Tell me you're staying for dinner?"
Internally, she was flummoxed. After the scene in the hospital wing, Rose had rather expected Lupin to seek her out; after all, she had a full cauldron of Wolfsbane potion to offer him on her kitchen stove. She might have expected Tonks to knock on the door, distraught, perhaps bearing wine. But she could not have predicted that they would clamber in together like this, giggling and in high spirits.
"I don't know, it depends what Tonks-"
"Of course we'll stay!" Tonks interrupted, throwing her arm around Rose and putting a bottle of champagne on Rose's kitchen table with one gesture. "We're celebrating," she informed Rose, whose arm had slipped around her in return and who was looking at her with amused bewilderment.
"You're celebrating-?" Only days from Dumbledore's death, Rose could only dimly grasp the meaning of the word.
Tonks and Remus looked at each other. Rose registered that Lupin was beaming, his color high, and that Tonks' hair was electric blue before her mind exclaimed what must be the reason. "Are you-" Rose began, then stopped.
Both parties seemed to be having a silent struggle over who would speak, but then Remus burst out, "We're engaged, Rosey!"
There was a few seconds in which the meaning of these words had to percolate through her mind. Weeks ago, she would have understood. But with the shock of the events of Dumbledore's death still fogging her mind, at first, Rose could only gape at them. Then, suddenly, she had clapped her hands to her mouth to keep from shouting with delight.
The morning of the funeral, Tonks had told Rose the whole story. "When we left Hogwarts, I fully intended to leave him behind, to leave everyone behind. I practically ran to Hogsmeade, trying to get the the apparition point before I had to talk to anyone. Wanted to lick my wounds, you know," she'd said, smiling wryly over her tea. "Thought I'd made enough of an arse of myself for one night. But, as it turned out, I hadn't."
Thinking she was alone, Tonks had indeed burst into a run once she'd arrived at the outskirts of Hogsmeade. But just before she had reached the first building in the village, her foot had struck one of the boulders with which the edge of the Hogwarts grounds was littered, and before she'd had time to make a noise, she'd hit the ground. She had felt her ankle twist, but her wand had flown from her hand at the impact. Tonks was beginning to pat the ground around her, searching for it and cursing under her breath, when Remus' voice had come from behind her.
"You really need to brush up on your Stealth and Tracking, Dora."
He had helped locate her wand, healed her ankle, and helped her to her feet before enough time had passed for her to do more than glare at him. But when she was on her feet again and was preparing to Disapparate to her flat to soothe her bruised ego (and her knees), Lupin had laid a hand on her shoulder. "Dora. Please," he had said, "can we go somewhere and talk?"
They had gone, initially, to a quiet, Muggle pub, not far from Tonks' flat. "That way, if things went sour, I could get home without risking another fall," Tonks had explained, and Rose had chuckled. They had talked for nearly the whole of the rest of the night.
"When it came down to it, the crux of it was, he wanted to protect me," Tonks said. "He said he kept telling himself he was doing the right thing, staying away from me. And that while he was in the camp, among all the other werewolves, it was easier to believe he was right, that I'd get over him, that I'd be safer without him. But having been away from it for two moons, and then hearing what Arthur Weasley had to say in the hospital wing, he started to reconsider. And, then, he said," Tonks had rolled her eyes as she said it, grinning, "There was my hair."
"Your hair?" Rose had asked, frowning.
"I still couldn't morph, even after a year. He said that's what made him realize I wasn't going to just get over him, and that he wasn't protecting me from anything by avoiding me."
"I told him that a dozen times!" Rose cried, throwing up her arms indignantly.
"I must've told him a million times," Tonks agreed, running her hands through her magenta hair. "He had to tell it to himself. The stupid arse," she added, grinning.
Sitting in her folding chair there on the Hogwarts lawn, Rose smiled to remember their evident joy. She quickly rearranged her face into a more suitable expression as the tufty-haired wizard droned on. Still, Minerva's words of the previous week echoed in her mind: "Dumbledore would have been happier than anybody to think that there was a little more love in the world." Rose felt the rightness of these words with greater certainty than she felt almost anything. Dumbledore would surely have delighted to think that people sat at his funeral rejoicing in love.
Rose found that she was grateful to have been so distracted during the funeral, for when it concluded, and the white flames had burned away and been replaced by the white tomb, she was clear-headed enough to make conversation with those around her. She had a few friendly words from Bill, and from Tonks and Lupin she had a longer conversation and an embrace from Tonks.
"We're going to have it on the 28th," Tonks breathed in her ear as they parted. "After the moon." With a lift of her eyebrow and a significant look, Tonks turned and accompanied Remus in walking toward the village.
That was a wedding invitation, Rose realized, and for a moment, jealousy crept into her emotions. She had never shared it with Sirius, but she had always wanted to be married in June. Perhaps on her birthday. It couldn't have been my birthday this year, though, she thought, frantically trying to distract herself from the emotion that was simmering inside her. My birthday's the full moon. The best man would not have been able to attend.
She was glad for Fleur's interruption. The young woman had apparently been dying to give her opinion of the event which had just concluded ("Dans l'ensemble, de belles obsèques, mais pourquoi ont-elles permis au garde-chasse de porter le corps?"2) but as they strolled a little away from the assembly, Rose saw something which distracted her yet again. Harry was standing by the shore of the Black Lake, in the company of Rufus Scrimgeour. Scrimgeour was talking heatedly, while Harry stood with his arms crossed, unmoving.
She held up a hand to Fleur, smiling apologetically and gesturing toward the Lake. "Fleur, un instant. Quelqu'un a besoin de sauver à nouveau mon neveu."3
Fleur looked over at the scene by the lake and scowled at the sight of the Minister. "Je dois dire que je n'ai été impressionné par aucun des ministres anglais de la magie que j'ai connus."4
Rose had spotted who she was looking for by this time, and she took gentle hold of Fleur's arm and steered her toward the row where Ron, and Hermione were still sitting. Ginny, who had been sitting next to Harry in the same row, was nowhere to be seen. Ron had his arms around Hermione, who was wiping her eyes as he spoke to her in a low voice. It was not a scene which Rose wanted to interrupt. A quick glance, though, showed her that Scrimgeour had not left Harry's side, so she put her hand gently on Hermione's shoulder.
"Hermione. Ron. So sorry to interrupt. But I think Harry could use your company."
Both of them stood and looked in the direction Rose was indicating. "Oh, dear," Hermione said, just as Ron said, "That bloody great nuisance again?" Without seeming to consult each other, they both started off in Harry's direction.
After she had finished speaking with Fleur, and had exchanged a few friendly phrases with the Weasleys, Rose turned toward Harry. She hesitated. Harry had not sought out a conversation with her since Dumbledore's death, and she wondered if he would prefer she keep away now. He, Ron, and Hermione were sitting under a spreading beech tree now, Scrimgeour having stumped away from them some time ago. Their conversion seemed calm, but sober.
Rose considered withdrawing and leaving him to the solace of his friends and familiar surroundings. But, the funeral effectively marked the end of the school year, and she knew he would soon be on a train, bound for London and for her sister's unwelcoming home. I wasn't able to make him this offer when he was a child. Petunia saw to that. I'd better not miss the opportunity now.
"Harry?" Rose had approached the trio so quietly that she called out his name to avoid startling them. They had ceased talking, but were simply looking out at the lake together. Ron and Hermione were holding hands discreetly.
Harry looked up at Rose's voice, and then got to his feet.
"It's all right, you don't need to get up," she protested, but he ignored this and walked over to her, leaving Ron and Hermione to sit a little more closely together once they had turned back around. Rose and Harry strolled the path around the shimmering Lake in silence for about a minute. Then, Rose cleared her throat.
"Are you all right?" she asked, her eyes darting to his face. He looked pale, and his eyes were red rimmed. "Of course you're not," she answered herself. He said nothing.
"Harry, I'll be returning to my flat this evening. I suppose you'll be going back to Privet Drive?"
"I have to," he replied. "Dumbledore wanted me to, one more time, before I turn seventeen."
"'As long as you call that place your home, you can't be harmed,'" Rose quoted. "I know. You have to go back. But we'll be getting you out before you come of age. You know that, don't you?"
"Lupin mentioned it, yeah." He put his hands in his pockets.
"So you have to go back to the Dursley's. But do you need to stay there? I mean, can you get away from a weekend or a day and still be able to call Privet Drive your home? Because, you know, I'd be very happy to have you, if you wanted to visit me." She looked at him quickly, and saw something of interest flicker in his eyes. "We could do whatever you liked in London. A museum. A film. Or you could just come see my flat for a change of pace. There's a second bedroom. I've got a television. We could bring your PlayStation," she suggested, smiling a little.
"Thanks, Rose," he said, a faint smile on his own face. "I'd like that."
"I've wanted you to come and visit me since I left school. Ever since Petunia intercepted my letter when you were eight. I wanted to make sure you know: you always have somewhere to go. You know, besides the Weasleys'. Besides Grimmauld Place. My flat, such as it is, can be your home too, if you like."
"I- I'd love to stay with you. Thank you. I just, I don't quite know . . . after Bill and Fleur's wedding, I don't exactly know where I'll be going. I might have to go to a few places, and it might take a while. I've got-"
"You've got a job to do," Rose finished for him, and he nodded. "I know you do. And not just because you've told me." She stopped walking and turned to face him, looking straight into his eyes, which were so like her own. "How many of them are there, Harry?" she asked in a low voice.
His eyes widened before they looked away from her. "How many what?" he asked, in what seemed a deliberately casual tone.
"How many Horcruxes did he make?" Rose asked him, not taking her eyes from his face.
He exhaled. "How do you know about that?"
She shook her head. "Never mind. Dumbledore set me on the right track, that's all. But that's what he did, isn't it? And you've got to destroy them before you can defeat Voldemort."
He only looked at her at first. Then he said, "Yes."
"How many?" she persisted.
"We think there are seven."
"Oh," was all she said, but as Rose contemplated the bloody, grotesque trail Voldemort must have left across the years to have produced so many abominations to humanity and nature, she muttered, "Mon Dieu." Then she said, more loudly, "I'm not going to get in your way, you know. I know you feel you must do this on your own. But I would feel better if you'd let someone come with you."
"Ron and Hermione say they're coming," Harry muttered. "But, I dunno . . ."
"You should let them," Rose told him. "They're the best team you could have. With Hermione's mind, and Ron's heart? That's the power-the-Dark-Lord-knows-not, if you ask me. Your love and your friends."
"I just don't want them to get hurt."
"I don't very much fancy the idea of you getting hurt," Rose told him. "But we have to trust people we love to make decisions for themselves. I won't get in your way, Harry, but I will help, in any way you'll let me. I'll put wards on my flat, enchantments, so it's safe if you need a place to stay. I won't be idle, either, whatever you do. I have something I'm going to be working on, too." She smiled at him again. "Maybe one day I'll let you know what it is."
They strolled for another thirty minutes by the gently lapping lake. Harry told Rose the whole story of his journey with Dumbledore to a cave by the shore, and the horrors that had been inside. He showed her a locket and a note, whose signatory initials caused Rose to suck in her breath. "I think you'll find you need a visit to Grimmauld Place sometime after the wedding. It may help you, you know. Gather yourself up before the leap, as it were."
"Maybe I will," he agreed. They had arrived, though hardly noticing where they were walking, back at the place under the beech tree where Ron and Hermione were still sitting very close together.
"I think we'll be celebrating your birthday at the Weasleys' this year," Rose told him before she left. "So, I'll get in touch with Petunia and see if I can't get you to London for a few days in early July. I'll be a bit busy before; I've got another wedding to go to, you see," she added, raising her eyebrows at him.
"Oh. Er, have you? That sounds like fun," he responded. She could tell he had no idea to whom she could be referring. Teenage boys, she thought, shaking her head. But, she decided to leave it at that, for they were now in range of Ron and Hermione's hearing. Hermione had looked up at their approach, but Rose only waved at her, hugged Harry, and walked off toward the village.
When the moon was at the last quarter, and the month was nearly at an end, Rose spent the night at Tonks' flat. Artemis Fawley, the only other good friend of Tonks' who was available at such short notice, knocked at the flat door at half past ten. Rose was silently drinking tea and reading at Tonks' high, bar-style kitchen table. Tonks was asleep.
"Wotcher, Tonks?" came a voice from the front door. Without waiting to be let in, Artemis appeared in the kitchen in a cloud of patchouli, her dreadlocked hair arranged in a formal sort of knot on the top of her head, her nose ring glinting in the morning light. She was carrying a basket of what turned out to be Scotch eggs. Rose looked up and smiled at her pleasantly. "Good morning."
"Morning! Nice day for it," Artemis announced as she set the basket down on the table. Looking around, she demanded, "Is she really still asleep? TONKS!" the young woman bellowed, walking through the kitchen toward the bedroom. "Get UP, you silly cow. Isn't the wedding at noon?"
"It's a casual affair," came Tonks' sleepy reply. Within an hour, they had breakfasted on the Scotch Eggs and tea, and Tonks was dressed. She wore a silk gown with a knee- length, full skirt, whose color on first glance appeared to be white, but which kept shifting its hue in the light like a dragonfly's wings. "Mum's going to hate it," she said, cheerfully, as she laced up her purple trainers.
Artemis ran a hand familiarly through Tonks' turquoise pixie-style cut. "Are you leaving it like this, or-?"
"I haven't decided," Tonks said, thoughtfully.
"I suppose Metamorphmagi can leave these things to the last minute," Rose observed, putting pins in her own hair and surveying herself critically in the mirror.
Tonks screwed up her face and gave herself long, raven hair. Artemis murmured appreciatively, but Tonks shook her head. "Too much like Mum." She tried blonde and curly, ginger and wavy, and finally settled on shoulder-length hair in her trademark bubble-gum pink.
At noon, they met Remus, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and Arthur Weasley at the Ministry of Magic. Molly and Arthur had offered the use of their yard, but Remus and Tonks had graciously declined. "One wedding is more than enough for you to worry about in one summer!" Remus had told them, and Tonks had agreed. Instead, they all crowded into a very small room in the Wizengamot Administration Offices on Level Two of the Ministry of Magic, where they joined the rest of the guests. A middle-aged witch in clerical robes performed the brief ceremony.
Rose spent most of the ceremony looking at Remus, who in turn was apparently unable to keep his eyes from Tonks. She did look lovely in her characteristically off-beat way. Her rose-colored hair brought out the flush in her heart-shaped face, and she kept glancing at Remus with such undisguised adoration that it made her radiant.
Remus' expression was similarly transformed. The lines in his face seemed to have melted away as he gazed at Tonks, looking as if he'd never be able to get enough of her. He seemed younger than he had looked in years, and brim-full with joy. Rose watched Remus and dabbed at her eyes with her handkerchief. How Sirius would have loved this day, she thought half a dozen times as the two promised to love and support one another all the days of their lives and were declared bonded for life by the middle-aged witch.
Wizarding weddings required no fewer than seven unrelated witness signatures. Rose carefully wrote Rose Evans beneath the names of Arthur Weasley, Molly Weasley, Artemis Fawley, Alastor Moody, and then she turned and gave Kingsley Shacklebolt the quill, smiling at him warmly. She was pleased with everyone today, despite the frequent twinges of longing for Sirius to be with them. As she walked away from the Marriage Certificate parchment, Rose was musing upon whether or not she would have taken Sirius' surname, or, as he had half-jokingly suggested, whether he would have taken hers ("I've been a Black for entirely too long, Mademoiselle. I'd abandon the name entirely before I'd foist it on anyone else!" he'd said), when an explosion sounded in the corridor outside the open chamber door, followed by a commotion.
"How do you defuse them?" someone was shouting urgently.
Kingsley, who had just finished signing his name, dashed out out of the room. "Don't use a Reductor!" he shouted, in a much more urgent voice than Rose had ever heard him use. Another explosion sounded and Kingsley's tall body briefly reappeared in the doorframe, then disappeared again. "CUT THE WIRES!" he bellowed. "DIFFINDO!"
Other voices rang out. "Diffindo!" "DIFFINDO!" and then there was silence.
Rose strained her ears from where she'd been huddling with Remus, Tonks, and Artemis Fawley, but she could only make out wordless voices. The voices sounded much calmer now, though. A moment later, Kingsley was back in the room. "We seem to be safe, now. Just . . . seems like a bit of a prank." His voice was back to its usual easy tempo and low pitch, but Rose did not miss the hesitation in it. She glanced at Remus and Tonks. Remus' face had resumed its lined, worn look; Tonks' eyes were narrowed, her mouth a flat line that almost disappeared. The sight of the expressions they were now wearing on their wedding day went to Rose's heart, and she strode forward to join Kingsley in the hallway. Only Andromeda Tonks got to the door before she did.
The sight that met them in the hallway explained Kingsley's hesitation. The hall was littered with exploded and defused Bombtastic Bombs, the shells of the exploded ones surrounded by ash and covered with displaced ceiling plaster. The unexploded bombs shone cheerfully, the insignia for Weasley's Wizard Wheezes visible on each one. But what was in the center of the hallway made Rose draw in her breath, and then flare her nostrils in fury. Written in what appeared to be dark red blood, but which smelled much worse, were the words,
BLOOD TRAITORS AND HALF-BREEDS WHELP ONLY DEATH
These words appeared on the floor; on the wall next to them, however, was a green, faintly glowing Dark Mark. The snake slithered eerily against the stone wall.
"Don't let them see," was the first thing Rose found herself capable of saying, but Andromeda had beaten her to it. Returning quickly to the door, the tall, elegant looking woman called out, "It's all right, only a prank. We'll just tidy up, before Nymphadora's shoes are ruined! Just a moment."
"Mum, I'm wearing trainers. You saw them!" came Tonks' exasperated voice, but Andromeda ignored her, shutting the door with a snap.
Kingsley, Rose, and Andromeda went to work alongside the two Ministry employees who had been in the corridor, checking to ensure all bombs had been defused, and then Vanishing the mess. The Dark Mark alone could not be removed.
When everyone trooped out of the chamber, Rose saw Remus glance at the Dark Mark on the wall and stiffen. He'd started to pick up his pace, seemingly to prevent Tonks from seeing it, but then he did a double take at the Magical Maintenance wizard who was now attempting its removal. "Reg?" he asked, stopping dead.
The wizard whirled around, his dark blue robes striking the wall as he did. "Sure it isn't Remus Lupin?"
"How are you?" Remus was shaking his hand vigorously in a moment. "How are your children?"
They were all held up a moment while Lupin and the Maintenance worker exchanged pleasantries. When he learned that Remus was just coming from his wedding, he demanded to shake Tonks' hand and warmly congratulated both. "That was Reg Cattermole. He was two years ahead of me at school," Remus explained as they trooped into the elevator. "He married Mary MacDonald, a good friend of Lily's, Rose, and a Gryffindor in her year."
The reception, such as it was, was to be held in a private room at The Leaky Cauldron, and those of the party who had fit into the first elevator were just discussing what they would order to eat, when the doors opened and Kingsley, who was standing in front of Rose, stiffened.
"Arthur," he said, and Mr. Weasley peered around him. The two exchanged looks. "I'm going to follow him," Kingsley told Mr. Weasley. "Just- watch your step," he said to the group, and disappeared.
They trooped across the floor to the fireplaces to exit. Rose could not help noticing how much attention they seemed to attract; some people merely glanced at them curiously, but a great many stared openly, and some whispered to those near them. As they were preparing to enter the Floo, they could hear a hissing voice call, "Werewolf scum!" and another shout "Blood traitors! Get out while you can!"
Rose was shaking with fury as they filed through Diagon Alley toward the Leaky Cauldron. Remus, for his part, seemed determined to brush the incidents off and to enjoy the day, joking with Tonks and embracing her as they walked. But Rose sidled up to Arthur and asked, "Who was it that Kingsley was following?"
"Corban Yaxley was in the Atrium," he replied in an undertone. "Walking with Pius Thicknesse, which is even more disturbing. He's the new Head of Magical Law Enforcement," he explained, in answer to Rose's questioning look.
"The Dark Mark on the walls, Death Eaters roaming the atrium," Rose mused. "The Ministry stands on shaky legs, it would seem."
"I'm afraid you're right," he said, heavily, then assumed a bright smile as they entered the pub and followed the music to the reception.
Remus and Tonks danced seven dances together in the dark, stuffy room at the pub, and if Tonks stumbled, tripped, or misstepped at all as she danced in Remus' arms, no one saw her do it.
Rose had returned Secrets of the Darkest Art, along with the other dark arts books which all happened to mention Horcruxes, at the beginning of June. Before she returned them to Dumbledore's office, though, she had painstakingly copied some ten pages of material out of the pages of Secrets of the Darkest Art. On the day before the new moon in July, Rose took a box out from under her bed, removed the copied pages, and placed them on her bed.
Dreamwalking is most efficacious when the moon is new. Any moonlight will cause an impediment to the Dreamwalker's progress. The brighter the moonlight, the greater the interference. Dreamwalking attempted at Full Moon will be completely ineffective.
It goes without saying that the subject of the Dreamwalk must be asleep for the spell to be effective.
To begin, the Dreamwalker must perform the four-directions incantation to create a compass (septentrio, meridies, oriens, occidens), then seat themselves within the compass. Therein they must meditate upon the events of the Dream they wish to create or influence.
Rose re-read the instructions in their entirety; it would not do forget the next step when she was in a trance-like state and unable to see the pages before her. She had already brought the basin of icy water which she would use to wake herself, and she'd made arrangements to have Tonks over for the night (Remus was patrolling at Malfoy Mansion) in case anything went wrong. When she was sure she remembered the instructions, Rose tapped her wand in all four directions and said the incantations to create the compass. She settled herself in the middle of the compass, and begin to concentrate.
The instructions had said that the meditation must be vivid, focused upon something which the Dreamwalker could clearly visualize. Of the many dreams which she wished to inflict upon Tom Riddle, the vividest in her mind was a dream of Lily. Lily, so intelligent, so compassionate, so formidable in her magic, so beautiful. It was Lily she thought of first whenever she considered the reasons Tom Riddle should have for remorse, and it was Lily upon whom she focused her thoughts now.
Lily's face was before her, smiling, green eyes flashing. Lily as she'd been as a teenager, talking animatedly, laughing easily, throwing up her chin when anyone weak was threatened. Lily, who was not too old to skip with her baby sister, applauding at Rose's summer recital, arguing spiritedly over politics with their mother in the kitchen. Lily in love with James, all lit up inside when she looked at him, eyes snapping wickedly when they sparred, her face illuminated by the sunset when she had married him on that June evening. Lily, round and pink in pregnancy. Lily, the day Harry was born, flushed and glowing with pride and love.
And then, on that ghastly night, Lily's body. Sirius had told Rose how it was, his eyes far away, his jaw set to keep out the threatening emotion, because Sirius had loved her too. Lily, sprawled out on the rug in front of the crib, her hair covering one sightless eye, her arm at an odd angle, deaf to the cries of the baby, who was gripping the bars of the crib, then reaching out for Sirius to pick him up. One moment of focus on Harry, his tiny nose running, tears clinging to the eyelashes that framed his vivid green eyes, her eyes. Lily. Gone, for Voldemort's cruelty and soaring ambition. Gone.
When she had run through the sequence in her mind three times, Rose opened her eyes only enough to wipe away the tears and pick up her wand, then closed them again. "Somnio."
And then she was asleep, for she was no longer aware of her body against the hard floor of her bedroom, or of her surroundings. Thoughts had softened, become more malleable, and words did not come to her as readily. Rose thought in images, in intentions, and rather leaned toward an idea than thought about it. The experience was so unsettling at first that she almost woke herself up prematurely in mild panic. But she forced herself to let her focus go soft, not to grip at herself or anything around her so tightly. It was not wise to attempt to have a waking mind in a dream.
Rose leaned out, recognizing that a great deal of space separated her from her object. The space in the dream-state was not geographic, not like a map, but like a web. Dreamers shone, bright nodes in a delicate network, though each was recognizable in its distinctive essence. Rose could not have described how she knew which person was Tom Riddle, or where he was, but after drifting and leaning by turns through the silvery web, she recognized the node that was her destination.
She recognized it first, then noticed as she entered it that it was different in quality from every other node she had passed. Tom's dreams were hard, sharp, and defined, but cold. There was no room in them for emotions; the place lacked a necessary dimension somehow. Rose found herself feeling flattened, and smothered. She almost cried out and tried to wake herself, but reminding herself that she did not need to breathe here, Rose leaned into the node with her intention for the dream of Lily.
Lily . . . you did not trouble to know her. Lily, one of your many victims, but she was loved, and she was lovely. Look at her, Tom. Look at the woman you killed, nearly sixteen years ago. She was your enemy, because she loved, and because she had courage. She defied you, Tom Riddle. You think you defeated her, but in ending her life you created so many enemies, and among them the most dangerous to you. Look at her. She loved. She lived. You have a body, you draw breath, but are you alive? Have you ever in your days been as alive as she was at any given moment of her life? Look at her, Tom. Feel what you have done, if you have the strength. Feel it, for your doom is coming for you, a doom which you created yourself. Look at her.
When she had conveyed the whole of the dream to him (and she knew that he saw what she wished him to, and heard what she wished him to, for he thrashed at first and then retreated into helpless fury which she could feel as she lingered), Rose leaned forward to reach the cold basin of water and thus, wake herself.
Nothing happened.
She leaned again, and found herself leaning toward the source of the rage which was Tom himself. She leaned back, then concentrated. Lean. Again, she only moved closer to the rage. Retreat. The lack of emotional dimension felt very much like smothering, and the fear she felt was what caused her to realize she had a body with which to flee. Her body spasmed and launched itself forward in blind panic. There were cold, wet sensations, and then Rose was in her body again, with eyes which she could open and see the shining basin of icy water.
She coughed, spluttered, and lay on the floor of her room several minutes as her heartbeat slowed and her thoughts returned to her. She was Rose, in her own body, in her own flat, in Dalston. Tonks was in the other room. She would see Harry tomorrow.
As if in response to Rose's thoughts, Tonks padded into the room, wearing pyjamas and looking as if she'd been asleep. "You all right then? Did you do it?" she asked, reaching out a hand to squeeze Rose's shoulder.
"I think so," Rose said, breathing heavily. "It was . . . so strange. Frightening. Waking up was the hardest part to pull off. It's like you have to remember what it feels like to have a body, when you have no concept of what a body is. I shall have to get better at it."
"That was stone cold metal, Rose," Tonks told her admiringly, and Rose found herself laughing.
"I'm glad you're here," she told the other witch, who squeezed her hand. "Mind coming round next month?"
"Oh, why not, I've already got one set of monthly duties, why not two?" Tonks joked, and as Rose's laugh bubbled up she felt that all the blood had finally reached her extremities. She had walked in Tom Riddle's nightmares, but she had returned.
1 "It is as I told you. You have gained her love in loving her son."
2 "Overall, a beautiful funeral, but why would they allow the game-keeper to carry the body?"
3 "Fleur, a moment. Someone has to rescue my nephew again."
4 "I must say, I have not been impressed with either of the English Ministers of Magic that I have known."
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