in my mind, my dreams are real
now you're concerned about the way i feel
"Rock 'n' Roll Star," Oasis
Harry heard the clicking and knew she was gone. Her talons against the windowsill were his nightly lullaby, so he rolled from his stomach onto his side, careful to rest on the shoulder opposite his knife wound. He tucked his knees up to his chest. Harry had slept in that position for as long as he could remember. It would be years and years before Ginny would wipe her eyes and pull her sleep-tousled hair back from her face, and say, in that gentle way of hers, "I don't mean to go all soul-stirrer on you, but d'you think there might be something to the way you always curl up in the fetal position?" And he would say, "The fetal what?"
But it was 1995 and the night was humid as a dog's breath and Harry's body was getting heavier, even as his mind became lighter. Then the darkness of his eyelids became blacker than black, the dark of total oblivion. Sleep rocked him back and forth, back and forth, until he realized with a start that he was on a train. The engine vibrated beneath him. He opened his eyes. Windows formed an endless path of rectangles diminishing into their own vanishing point. There were no compartments and no doors. And Ron was there, and Hermione was too, and a man with a pronounced limp was approaching him, brandishing a ticket. Harry knew he was going to Hogwarts, because that was where all trains lead, wasn't it?
The ticket was pink. Remus Lupin said, "Of course, you'll need a permission slip."
"I don't have one," said Harry, who, without checking, just knew he didn't have one.
"I have mine!" said Hermione, excitedly producing hers.
"Mine's... I don't know, I can't find it," said Ron. "But I have it somewhere." He leaned down to riffle through a rucksack, pulling out random objects; a Sneakoscope, a candy bar, a tiny dragon breathing real flames, and a map that somehow was also a clock.
"I can't let you go on the field trip without one, Harry. You'll have to get this signed by Professor McGonagall."
"She won't sign it, she's not my guardian" said Harry, miserably. He was going to miss the trip. And he wanted to go so badly...
"I'll go with you to ask," Hermione said.
Harry turned to look at her, but her face was indistinct. It's not that she was blurry, but he found that he could not bring his eyes into focus when he looked at her directly.
"That's a good idea," said Professor Lupin.
"You'll help me ask?" Harry implored her. "Convince her?"
"Yeah..." Hermione said. "We've helped each other out, haven't we? We both got here."
They reached for the ticket simultaneously, then shrank back, out of courtesy.
"Let's just take it together," said Hermione, but she spoke in Harry's own voice. They both reached for the pink ticket again, but Harry touched it a split second sooner, and suddenly, the train was gone. The thrumming of the engine beneath him had gone silent and still.
It was dusk. Harry walked around experimentally, feeling nearly weightless. He ran and jumped effortlessly. Around him, crooked gravestones chopped up the landscape; in the distance, a Victorian clapboard house was silhouetted against the bloody sunset. Harry noticed two people walking towards him. The first figure had a jaunty, athletic walk. The second figure was shorter; she walked gracefully, her long hair waving flag-like in the breeze.
"Hey! Harry! Harry, come here and meet my friend," called out the young man.
"Hey, Cedric," said Harry.
"Here she is," Cedric grinned. "The newest TriWizard champion. This is—"
But a gust of wind whistling through the gravestones covered up the young woman's name, and Harry did not want to be rude and ask again.
She reached Cedric's side and smiled at Harry. Her long hair was red and lustrous, her cheeks lightly freckled. In her platform espadrilles, she stood at least half a head taller than him.
"I'm so pleased to meet you," said the Laura Ashley model, adjusting the shawl around her shoulders. "I can't believe you won the Tournament so young."
"Harry's brilliant," Cedric insisted. "Tell her how you won, Harry."
"I...I was on a dragon," said Harry. "And there was an egg. Then the egg opened and inside it was a weed—" But now that he thought of it, he couldn't remember how he had won the Tournament...or if he had won. Wasn't there another task, or something? He searched his memory, turning up only flashing Sneakoscopes and the clicking of Hermione's knitting needles.
"Come with me," said the beautiful young woman. "I want to show you something." She offered Harry her hand. It was so very soft. She led him away from Cedric, who waved, his spirits never lagging as she and Harry abandoned him in the darkening graveyard.
The world blurred and refocused. Harry was following the young woman up a set of dark, creaky stairs. He braced himself with a hand on the wall beside him, feeling flocked velvet wallpaper. Dark patches on the faded paper showed where pictures had been removed.
"Just in here," said the woman. "I know you'll like this..."
He followed her eagerly around the gentle curve of the staircase. They emerged into a short hall, and she disappeared through a doorway, Harry trailing her.
They were in a grand, but dilapidated bedroom lit by a flickering candelabra. A walnut dresser was snowy with dust; brown paper was taped over the soaring windows. To Harry's right, velvet drapes shrouded a four-poster bed. They were billowing and rustling, as though an imperceptible breeze filtered through them. The drapes beckoned to him, their gentle motions hypnotic. Harry stepped towards the bed. His hand moved of its own accord toward the velvet.
"No," said the woman. "Don't open them. Come here."
She was leaning over the dark dresser, examining her reflection in a liver-spotted mirror. Harry approached her. He was fully gliding now, hardly feeling his legs at all. She turned towards him, letting the shawl slip off her shoulders and fall to the floor. Her lips were partially open. Doe eyes reflected seven shimmering candle flames. He tried to smile at her, but felt too uncoordinated to move both sides of his mouth at once.
"Do you want to see underneath this?" said the woman, lifting up the hem of her blouse. "No one will know."
Yes, yes, yes, thought Harry, but he said, "Cannot predict now."
"What's that?"
Yes, I do, he tried to say, but all that came out was "Better not tell you now."
"Don't you like me, though?" she said.
"Ask again later!" Harry blurted, panicked because he could not speak the simple word so clear in mind.
The woman sighed heavily, looking hurt. He thought she would leave him, run down the stairs, run off to—where were they again? But instead, she grabbed her blouse, pulled it up and over her head and dropped it. Harry had barely a chance to admire the creamy skin and freckled clavicle before his stomach fell through his body, for as the blouse peeled off, so did the woman's beautiful, uncomplicated face.
And underneath it was a face Harry had memorized and retraced in reverence, like the four points of a crucifix. Forehead, left cheek, right cheek, and chin. Sad emerald eyes. His mother.
Her face crumpled in recognition of his own, and a searing pain burst through his scar, forcing Harry to clutch his head in agony. The world shattered. The spotted mirror splintered to bits and disappeared. Lily's melancholy eyes were the last thing to fade away.
His woke to his own wail of pain. Harry rolled over and swallowed back a mouthful of vomit. Stomach acid stung his lips. His gums felt raw, as though he were a baby cutting teeth.
The digital clock read 1:40. He rocked back and forth on his side, closing his eyes and pressing the heels of his hands hard against his eyes, willing the pain away. It felt like a long time before the agony dissolved into a manageable migraine. Harry uncovered his eyes and looked at Hedwig's empty cage, blurry and moonlit across the bedroom. He blinked. The blurriness wavered and wobbled and streaked down his cheeks like twin train tracks. He touched his cheek with one finger; licking his fingertip, he tasted salt.
Train tracks. He tried to recall the dream; only bits and pieces returned to him. Something about a train, and Lupin was there. No, it wasn't Lupin, it was Hermione. And there was a velvet curtain. He had been in a long hallway with a black door at the end—no, it was a staircase, and there were three doors...but he was certain there was a blue-purple-red gradient, a fiery dusk, a beautiful, ominous twilight. And there he was walking, but sort of floating, and there was a hill...but how did the train connect to the hill? Because there were shapes on the hill, yes, rectangular shapes, grey and stony and marble. And a young man and a—
"I'm not thinking about that," Harry whispered aloud. He looked to the clock and wished that Hedwig would return at once, as thought he glowing numbers were birthday candles. And he thought, there was something about candles, wasn't there? Seven candles. But he could not cling to the thin film of the dream without seeing the parts he did not want to remember. So he lay his head back against the sweaty pillow and pushed down the blanket, trying to cool off. It was only when the headlights of a car passed through the window blinds that Harry noticed the dark patch below his waist. His boxers were damp below his hesitant fingers.
The well-practiced routine, the old rhythm from primary school. He could almost be seven years old and living in the cupboard beneath the stairs. Harry changed clothes in the dark, shutting dresser drawers with his flexed toes. With his sheets and soiled boxers bundled up in his arms, he felt like a hobo from an American film he'd seen about the Great Depression. He tiptoed downstairs. Vernon's loud snores could tear through crumpled paper. In the dark laundry room, the tiles were cold and soothing to his bare feet. Harry threw his bundle into the apron sink and poured liquid laundry soap onto the fabric, scrubbing it through the sheets and boxers with his bare hands. He wondered what Dobby would think if he saw him right then. Would he insist on helping, or would he vanish with embarrassment at Harry's predicament?
Probably the former, thought Harry, glad that Dobby was safely stashed away in Hogwarts. He almost smiled.
Harry wrung out the sheets and boxers as well as he could, cringing when droplets of water hit the bottom of the sink with a metallic clink. He glanced at the dryer, but could not chance it. Petunia would definitely notice if he threw anything inside before Laundry Day. She noticed everything. The other day, she'd asked Harry why he'd been snacking on grapes—two grapes, to be specific—an hour before dinner. He had no choice but to bring the soggy wet bundle back upstairs and hide it in his room, where it would dry into crisp wrinkles.
Back in his room, he stuffed the wet sheets and boxers into the lowest dresser drawer, the one that stayed empty year-round because Harry left his winter clothes in his trunk. He shoved it closed with his foot and fell back onto his bare mattress. The ceiling was dark and bubbly with optical noise. It was impossible to fall asleep with the rough mattress beneath his bare arms and legs. He got off the bed and decided to rest atop the blanket, since it was so warm, but that didn't help either. Harry laid on his stomach; he tried lying on his back with his arms thrown up above his head, but he felt so exposed he couldn't possibly relax. Finally, Harry gave in to the impulse to roll up into a ball, knees tucked into chest. Through his blinds, the sodium streetlamp glowed on, like a sentinel.
Sleep eluded him. The pain in his scar wasn't unbearable, but it kept him awake and uncomfortable. The numbers on the digital clock changed much too slowly. He heard the stop-and-go dribbling of urine into a toilet bowl, a flush, and a faucet's rush. That tiny suburban waterfall. That would be Vernon, up in the middle of the night. From somewhere down the street, the faintest sound of a dog barking made Harry scrunch up his eyes, thinking of Sirius. The weight of a dog's head on his lap as he lay in the Hospital Wing, safe in enchanted slumber.
He rested, his eyes half-open. The ceiling slowly changed colours, as night faded into dawn like a potion maturing into full potency. Harry perked up when he heard a scratching sound from the window. It was Hedwig, hooting in irritation at the window coverings. The blinds lifted, bending awkwardly as she attempted to sneak her way underneath them. When she flew to her open cage, a feather fell to the bedroom floor. She sipped eagerly from her water bowl.
Harry pushed himself up by the elbows, then rolled off his bed to join her. Her crowning feathers were soft beneath his fingertips. Hedwig fluffed out her body and trilled a musical greeting.
"What's that you have?" he breathed. Two little rectangles had fallen to the newspaper shreds lining her cage. Harry picked up the envelopes and tore them both open, turning on his desk lamp.
The first was a letter from Ron, written in his hasty half-script, lacking any commas whatsoever.
Hey Harry
Still hanging out here with Hermione and the family. I wish I could tell you a bit more of things but you know we're not supposed to share too much in a letter. It's kind of dull without you but—
Harry scanned through the letter, impatient for real news. Absolutely nothing. Just a few jokes about getting fat on his mum's cooking, complaints about the twins, more promises to "talk later" and an update on professional Quidditch scores. He didn't even bother to finish reading it before dropping Ron's letter to the floor and turning to the second one.
July 7th, 1995
Dear Harry,
I really do wish you could be here with Ron and I. We're so anxious to see you again—
He rolled his eyes. It was so like Hermione, to write the date on the stupid letter. He scanned on.
—and the worst part is, they don't know any Muggle bands whatsoever! Can you believe it? The state of wizarding-Muggle relations cannot possibly improve when wizards are so lacking in basic understanding of Muggle culture, and that includes the arts! I explained to Ron how important it was that wizards really get a full picture of Muggles and stop seeing them as these simple brutes tragically lacking in powers, when actually, scientifically and socially, they have advanced so far past what wizards have been able to achieve. When I recommended Under the Pink and Dry, two of my favourite albums of late, nobody had even—
Harry rolled his eyes. Oh my god, he thought, who cares? Harry had never even heard of those albums either. His eyes glazed over at Hermione's tightly crammed printing, her complaints about the Daily Prophet and the Hogwarts board of directors, her jibes at Ron and an explanation of exactly how she'd written to Professor McGonagall to request permission to audit NEWT classes during their upcoming OWL year. Then he noticed the upper-case letter C and two inkblots, signs of Hermione's hesitant hand.
I know you are probably wondering if Cedric has been buried yet, and if there was a funeral. I asked Mr. Weasley, and he said that they haven't heard anything at the Ministry. It might be private, but I don't know. I do hope you're holding up, and not feeling too awfully about things. It must be a terrible summer you're having.
Harry dropped her letter on the desk. It was pointless. They weren't going to say anything of value. At this very moment, they were asleep in cozy rooms at the Burrow. Today, they'd probably ride brooms in the orchard, Ron racing above the apple trees, Hermione timidly floating four feet off the ground. Mrs. Weasley would yell at Ginny to set the table. Fred and George would cook up something subversive and hilarious up in their bedroom, with the window open to let in the fresh country breeze. He could see Hermione's homework parchment scattered across Ron's bedroom floor. And Ron would tease her for studying so hard over the holidays while Crookshanks pawed at her frizzy hair.
In Ottery St. Catchpole, no one cared about the drought; they had magic. Water. High noon turning the grassy meadows to emeralds. He could taste ripe cherries by the handful, smell the chicken feed Ginny sprinkled across the muddy coop. Harry knelt down to pick up Ron's letter from the floor and compared it to Hermione's. Both letters were written in the same violet spell-checking ink Harry recognized from Ron's school trunk. A dark river rushed through Harry's abdomen.
He crumpled both letters up and threw them across the room. Then Harry crawled on his hands and knees to the dark cavity beneath his bed, and he retrieved the Laura Ashley catalogue. Glossy pages and frozen smiles, all crescent-shaped like nail clippings. He turned to the redhead in her espadrilles. She was beaming at Harry; she wanted him, still. He did not want her anymore.
So he turned the page. It was a suntanned brunette who fixed Harry in her absent gaze as, for the first time, he probed his own skin not for wounds, but for the evidence of something tender and responsive. His metronomic breathing marking the space between frantic ruptures. Hedwig closed her eyes. Even the rising sun waited, unsure.
And then all at once, he was closed. The ruptures disappeared into flatness; dawn broke like a pebble crashing through a window. Harry dropped the catalogue to the floor. It was over. He was on the other side; something in Harry knew that he could no more return to the darkness and the digital clock than he could to the ripe leaves and evening breeze of the hedge maze. There are borders you can't go through. There are seams.
So Harry rose and dressed for the morning, pairing socks as he wondered why he felt so unreasonably bitter that Ron and Hermione were sharing an inkwell.