Thank you to everyone who reviewed the previous chapter, your words are very much appreciated :)

So, I'm not sure if I've ever been so nervous about posting a chapter as I am for this one, because I'm really worried you guys might hate it. I just hope that if you've liked this story enough to get this far, you can trust me with where it's going (only half-a-dozen chapters left!).

And on that optimistic note, here is Chapter 60: The Tell-Tale Heart...

Ever since she was a little girl, Lena Riddle had a horrible suspicion that she didn't have a heart.

To try to reassure herself this wasn't the case, Lena would sometimes place her hand over her chest, pressing against the spot where she knew her heart was supposed to be, and she would feel the rhythmic beating and hear it in her head. But this never gave her peace of mind, because what if she was just imagining it? Perhaps it was an illusion, and she couldn't see past it because she was quite, quite mad. Or what if there was something inside her chest, making the noise and causing her chest to rise and fall as she breathed, but it was only pretending to be a heart? Maybe it was something else that kept her blood circulating through her body – something cold and dark that couldn't truly feel anything.

Every now and again, a temptation to tear open her chest so she could finally see what was really inside her filled Lena. Only, she didn't know what she would prefer to find: that the only part of her that had been incorrectly made was her delusional mind, or that she was truly a heartless monster.

Most of the time, it didn't trouble Lena that she had been adopted. But every now and then, the thought crossed her mind: had her birth parents abandoned her because they knew something was wrong with her?

She had wanted to love, desperately. All her life, her father's adoration had enveloped her, and little Lena wanted to reciprocate. But she didn't know how it was done. She tried to do whatever he asked, to do her best to make him proud, to make him laugh. She would be his tiny shadow, following him wherever he went. She swore she would never let him die. But none of what she did made her feel. Her emotions were pale imitations, designed to hide the numbness from both herself and everyone else.

When she discovered that Muggles had a plethora of writing – both literary and musical – that explored something called 'the human condition', Lena absorbed whatever she could, trying to understand how other people spoke and felt, what love and all the other emotions that eluded her were supposed to be. And she fashioned herself further into 'perfection' – at least, in the eyes of others.

She delighted her father's friends, who lavished her with praise. She was charming, she was clever, she was kind. She was the daughter all of them dreamed of having. And when she started Hogwarts, she was the friend everyone wanted, helpful and caring. And she was desirable, although unattainable. Everyone wanted to be the one she liked best, who she would give her hand to and pull through into her private life, where no one else had tread. Of course, they were all too afraid to say they wanted this – after all, who would dare to think they were worthy of Lena Riddle?

Except Gemma. At the beginning of Sixth Year, the two of them, alone in their dormitory, had sat on her bed as Lena helped her with homework. And Gemma had taken the risk, surprising Lena with a kiss. The tiny spark of physical pleasure Lena experienced had been a kind of feeling. It had, at least, been something. So they had tried a relationship.

Curious kisses gradually turned into a physical intimacy that occupied some of the emptiness in Lena's non-heart. For Gemma, this was an invitation to pour her soul out to Lena – she confessed all her insecurities and her secret desires. In return, Lena gave her sympathy, advice, a tolerant affection, and nothing else. The very idea of sharing her interior self the way Gemma did physically sickened her.

Gemma's strong attraction initially blinded her to the disparity in their feelings. But she couldn't be fooled forever.

Saturday 6 March, 1993:

After nearly two hours of enjoying Gemma's body, Lena decided it was probably time to get out of her girlfriend's bed. She knew their dorm mates, Maggie and Nicole, likely wouldn't be back any time soon, but she had some reading she wanted to do.

She kissed Gemma one more time, then pushed back the bedcovers and sat up. As she got out of the bed, picking her underwear up from the floor as she did, Gemma protested, "Oh, come on, there's still another hour until lunch!"

"You still have thirteen inches of a Charms essay to write," Lena reminded her, pulling up her knickers.

Gemma pouted. "But I haven't been satisfied," she complained suggestively.

"Liar. You've been satisfied four times this morning."

Moving to the edge of the bed and reaching out in an attempt to stop Lena doing up the clasps of her bra, Gemma pleaded, "Can't we just lie next to each other for a bit? You know, just be... together."

Stepping out of reach, her bra re-hooked, Lena asked, "Why? Was there something you wanted to talk about?"

"Not really, I just..." Gemma sighed, and looked away from Lena, clearly disappointed.

Lena pursed her lips, but sat back down on the bed. "Budge up," she ordered Gemma, who eagerly did as she was told, and they both lay down under the bedcovers again, facing each other. Lena encircled Gemma's naked body with her arms, and tried to make her voice sound as tender as possible. "What's wrong?"

"It's nothing," whispered Gemma, her finger drawing an invisible line down Lena's arm. "I just really like spending these moments with you. No one else but the two of us, body to body..." She drew closer, so her breasts were pushed against Lena's, "... Heart to heart."

Lena's stomach twisted, but she managed to hide any discomfort on her face. "I like it too," she told Gemma. She gave the girl her best charming smile. "It's certainly a pleasant view."

Gemma giggled, her cheeks slightly pink. "It's not so bad from where I am, either." She moved her face forward, so it was less than an inch away from Lena's lips, and murmured, "And every time we do this, I fall just a little bit more in love with you."

This time, Lena couldn't hide her reaction. Gemma had never used the 'L' word before. Her whole body tensed, and she knew Gemma could feel it. "Oh," she said quietly. "You... I didn't realise–"

Pulling her face back, Gemma raised her eyebrows. "How can that surprise you? We've been together six months, Lena."

"I know," replied Lena quickly, willing her body to relax and keep a hold of Gemma – instead of letting her go and getting out of the bed as fast as possible, like she wanted. "I just wasn't expecting you to say... that... now."

Gemma stared at her for a long moment, and Lena could feel the discomfort that was growing in her body too. "Would you rather I hadn't said it?" she asked eventually, unable to mask the fear in her eyes.

"Of course not!" lied Lena. She kissed Gemma, but it was harsher than she'd intended, almost violent.

The brunette was taken aback, but after a few seconds responded in kind, and within ten minutes, was satisfied for the fifth time that morning. But the seed of doubt had been planted.

Two months later, a tearful Gemma had ended things with her, having finally realised that no amount of flirting, sex or patience would induce what she wanted from Lena – for her to say, "I love you too."

Lena had not been upset, but was annoyed with herself. What she had done to Gemma – giving her hope when there was none – was perceptibly cruel, and it was a blemish on her carefully constructed persona. She vowed to herself that from then on, she would be clear to any prospective 'romantic' partner: it would never be anything more than a brief, purely physical fling. Her reputation needed to be one of 'honesty', not someone who lied and led others on.

Then she had met Remus. And the moment they had locked eyes, a strange thought had crossed Lena's mind: the reason she didn't have a heart was because it belonged to this man – this scarred, older man with his light green eyes and a nose that was a little too big to be conventionally attractive, and who was obviously a werewolf.

For the first time in her life, Lena felt an actual pang in her chest, something akin to pain, but not quite that. 'It's longing,' she had realised, when she had asked for permission to touch his scars. She badly wanted the stranger to like her – nay, adore her. She wanted him to smile at her, to talk to her, to beg to see her again. She hoped he would fantasize about her, that he would forget about any other women who'd ever interested him. She needed to kiss him. And once she had done just that at the end of their first date, she needed more.

However, the next six months of their budding relationship were confined to exchanging letters. At first, this frustrated Lena. But gradually, the act of reading his words and writing her own to him started to give her pleasure that was greater than Gemma's intimate touch had ever caused. It felt like they were fucking each others' minds – in a very good way.

In all truth, when Lena had gone to his flat after graduation, she knew what she was experiencing wasn't love, but she was more than willing to pretend it was – especially as they were having sex and Remus was telling her over and over again that he loved her. And her obsession with him certainly wasn't faked, because being with Remus was the closest she'd ever felt to having a heart.

Sometimes, when she was falling asleep, she semi-consciously imagined that he was keeping her heart in a jar or a box, and it was only metres away. For some reason, this ludicrous idea gave her great comfort.

Her fear about her heart was the one thing she never shared with Remus; she just told him that she found it difficult to emotionally connect with most people. As someone who was also introverted and used to keeping people at a distance, he accepted this. She felt him observing her when she faked smiles at other people and lied to them with ease, all the while believing he was the one exception to the rule. He was so convinced of her love for him that within less than three years of knowing her, he asked her to marry him.

Love still eluded Lena, but the thought of not having Remus terrified her. She couldn't let him leave her, not the man who kept her heart. So, with a big smile on her face, she accepted his proposal like becoming his wife would make her happier than anything else in the world.

As her father had walked her down the aisle, it had occurred to Lena that this must have been her happily-ever-after. No, the feeling of wanting to rip her chest open still didn't go away, and no, she still hadn't experienced a moment of complete euphoria that she could use to turn her Patronus from a mere silver shield to something corporeal. But the publishing of her first book had led to the Wizarding world heralding her as a genius at least on par with her father, and she was marrying the man who she didn't want to spend her life without. Just as her heart was his, all of Remus belonged to Lena.

Perhaps she didn't feel love as the Muggle poets described it, but it was better than nothing.

The newlywed couple had moved into their new house in Notting Hill, and Lena had been as content as she had ever been. Until that night at the end of July, when she had been woken shortly after midnight by an unsettled feeling in her stomach, and she had thrown up in the bathroom. Staring at her vomit in the toilet – an unfamiliar sight, as she hadn't been sick since she was a baby – a strong sense of dizziness overcame her. When it had cleared, she suddenly understood: she was pregnant.

Somewhere in her mind there had been a tiny spark of joy, but it had felt almost obligatory, and was nearly entirely drowned out by panic. How the hell was she supposed to be a mother if she couldn't even properly love her father or her husband, who both loved her more than anything else in the world? What if the child could sense her heartless nature?

What if the child was like her?

It had been easier to confide her fears – to an extent, not wholly – to her father first. They were more similar. But it had made her incredibly uncomfortable to hear him speak so compassionately, so proudly, so lovingly, so... obliviously. She knew she was supposed to return the sentiments, but in that moment, lying had felt so wrong. Instead, she had used the hormonal increase of pregnancy to her advantage, and made herself cry. 'I'm sorry,' she had sobbed, her tears hiding the true meaning of her words, that she couldn't repay his love with her own. The catharsis of finally saying it had put her more at ease to at last give Remus an explanation as to why she was being so reserved.

Of course, it was that night he had to come home drunk – when he knew how much she didn't like him getting into that state. It was sloppy, it was careless, it was irritating. And with her hopes of having a calm, clear, meaningful conversation about the pregnancy dashed, she had been colder than she normally would be.

They had argued – their first, proper argument. His frustrated, angry words had thrown Lena off-balance. Then, with his vision clouded by alcohol, he had finally caught a glimpse of the truth: 'Do you even love me?'

For a moment, Lena had thought it was all over. He knew. And now he knew, he wouldn't want her. He would leave.

She couldn't let that happen, not ever. So she had to make him think he had said something so hurtful, so unforgivable, so cruel, that he would regret his words and be blind to the truth once again. Crying wouldn't be enough; she needed to act like his words were violence.

At first, she had hated acting so weak, so vulnerable, to literally run away from him and curl up, shaking like a leaf in the wind. But Remus' reaction, his outpouring of love, had been so satisfying. She had sucked it all in, like it was oxygen and she had been just about to die from suffocation. And it had reassured her that no matter what her relationship with their child might turn out to be, it would at least have one parent who loved it unconditionally.

She was still concerned about the baby that continued to grow inside her, but she had made a decision: she would pretend to be happy, to be excited. She would force herself to play the role of ecstatic, expectant mother until it just came naturally.

The first thing she did was tell him about her 'anxieties', things that he would believe he could convince her were just nerves, that she didn't need to worry about because he would be with her every step of the way. The second thing was to resume physical relations. While pregnancy hadn't actually affected her sex drive one way or another, she acted like she couldn't keep her hands off him, that all she wanted was for him to touch, caress, kiss every inch of her body, and to do the same for him. Just like the night of her graduation, Remus would tell Lena he loved her, countless times, as he moved inside her. It wasn't a hardship; just slightly tiring after a while. And it was nice to know Remus' attraction to her hadn't been dampened by the continuous swelling of her body.

Then, not quite four months after the initial realisation, she felt the baby move. Instinctively, she called out for Remus – but not because she was worried about him missing this monumental first interaction. She wanted him there because the movement had reminded her that this was an actual living thing, and she did not want to be alone with it. She didn't trust herself.

Lena fixed a wonderstruck expression to her face just in time as Remus burst into her study, firing off panicked questions: "What's wrong? Are you all right? Is everything okay?"

"I felt the baby move, Remus," she breathed, as though she couldn't believe her good luck. "Like a little nudge in my stomach."

His worried expression immediately transformed into a delighted grin. "Really?" He came over to the desk to stand next to her and put his hand on her stomach too. With a look of fierce concentration, he stared down at it. Twenty seconds later, Lena felt another miniscule twitch, and her throat constricted uncomfortably. It wasn't delightful at all – just terrifying.

But Remus had felt it too this time. "Oh," he whispered, mesmerised. "Hello."

"This is really happening," murmured Lena. "There's a child inside me. My child." She shook her head a little, trying to drive away the panic building inside her. It was the most scared she had been since the fight. "We created a new life – without even meaning to."

Remus stroked her cheek, his eyes so full of love and joy that it nearly made the rest of him glow. "The happiest of accidents."

Lena forced a smile. "Yes," she lied. "A beautiful surprise."

The Creator paced around the bedroom. She was angry. Stupid Lena – she was ruining everything. The silly girl wasn't even aware of the true price she was paying for the impossible child, and she was still unhappy. After everything she had given her... and she had given her everything.

She had come to terms with the cost of saving lives right at the beginning, when she had ensured Merope Riddle's survival of childbirth – there had to be an exchange. It wasn't pleasant to sacrifice some lives for others (it certainly wasn't the 'perfect world' she'd imagined), but it was a necessary evil. The new world was better than the original, she was certain.

However, the existence of an entirely new life was demanding much more than the lengthening of one she hadn't played a part in creating. As the embryo developed into a foetus which gradually evolved into a baby, the balance of reality kept shifting, requiring more weight to be shed so her child didn't tip the scales.

She stopped her pacing, and closed her eyes. In her mind, when she focused, she could see the entire world, all at once. Her world, delicate but beautiful. And Lena didn't appreciate it. Not being raised as the daughter of a good, kind Voldemort who wasn't a mass-murderer, not the avoidance of the damage the Orb had inflicted on her body and psyche, not a Remus who had been rid of his self-loathing – none of it.

Yes, the lack of appreciation was partly her fault for stripping Lena of her memories of a darker, crueller world. But surely she could understand how fortunate, how privileged she was! Why couldn't she just be happy? Why couldn't she just love?

It was the one thing she couldn't force, couldn't control. She could make tiny suggestions, but otherwise she had to keep Lena's mind entirely separate from her own. Four months ago, the implicit message she'd left behind had worked to a degree – Lena had kept the baby. But what was the point if she didn't love it? Even if Lena didn't remember, the Creator did: a child who knew their mother didn't love them could be a danger to both themself and everyone else. Maybe Lena wouldn't be as cruel as Bellatrix, but the child would still sense it.

As she cradled her belly, she saw that Remus' sleep was restless again. She frowned; what had he been dreaming of these past few months that disquieted him so? She had tried to look into his mind before, but she could not see inside clearly.

'It must have something to do with Lena's heart,' she thought, not for the first time. She knew he kept it under their bed, even if he wasn't aware of it. The amount of times its beating had him look underneath and find the case... only to completely forget about it the moment he took his eyes off it. She couldn't let him open it, because then he would remember everything, and he would be furious. But she couldn't move it and hide it somewhere he'd never find it, as the original Lena had been too clever, enchanting the case so that she could never touch it – not physically nor magically. So there it lay, the sole remainder of an old world.

She could see Remus was close to waking, which meant she needed to lie back down on the bed with him, and hand control of the body back to Lena.

Exhaling, she looked down at her belly, whispering, "Don't worry, everything will be all right, I promise. She will love you. I'll find a way. I always do."

Then she lay down, and the Creator's consciousness, with all its memories of another life, locked itself into its room on the lowest level of her memory palace, just as Lena's emerged from another on a higher storey – unaware, as always, that she was not alone in the house inside her mind.

Saturday 6 December, 1997:

It had been enormously difficult for Remus to find time to go birthday shopping for Lena – not because work was exceptionally busy, but because Lena wanted him to spend every free minute he had with her. It was a little strange, as she usually valued chances for solitude, but he supposed it was just one of the behavioural changes that was a consequence of pregnancy. However, her godmother was finally back in England after several months of travelling, so Lena was spending the afternoon with Valeriya, which finally gave Remus an opportunity to head to the shops.

He was browsing the aisles of Flourish and Blotts when he spotted a familiar face in the new releases section: Severus Snape.

Remus hadn't had much to do with his former classmate since graduating, apart from occasionally seeing him at the Ministry, where Snape worked as an Unspeakable. Nonetheless, he had been a recurring element of his unusual dreams from the last few months. With the exception of the very first one – the battle in the sky – he hadn't actually physically appeared in them, but he was frequently mentioned, and the same words always sprung to dream-Remus' mind: 'traitor' and 'murderer'. In this odd, sleep-created world, he had also apparently become the headmaster of Hogwarts.

The intense loathing he felt for Snape in these dreams surprised Remus. Yes, he, Sirius and James had never gotten on with the Slytherin kid during school, but there had never been a strong mutual hatred. Other than the fact he had been one of the smartest students in their year level, and had been friends with Lily during First Year (they'd gradually grown apart as Snape spent more time with his housemates), he'd not been particularly remarkable – just a quiet boy, with an interest in the Dark Arts that was slightly greater than most, and perhaps a little unhealthy.

Desperately curious about how this dream-world had come to be, Remus had been trying to research any studies of dreams he could find. Was it a recurring phenomenon, people constructing some kind of alternate world in their sleep and repeatedly visiting it? Nothing he had found yet suggested this.

And it was such a horrible world. James, Lily and Sirius were all dead; Lena, for whatever reason, was simply gone; the Ministry was rounding up and imprisoning Muggle-borns in a place called Azkaban, which was guarded by these ghastly creatures called Dementors; werewolves were still regarded as subhuman, but were attacking people with impunity; and at the centre of it all was this Lord Voldemort, a wizard more evil than any before.

Remus desperately wanted to talk to someone about it, but he didn't know who. He didn't want to say to his friends he was dreaming of a world where they were dead. He didn't want his mother to worry about him. The idea of telling Lena he was imagining a world where they were no longer together (although he didn't know why) made his stomach twist painfully. Dumbledore, who had always told Remus he could come to him with any problem, was dead. Who else could he talk to?

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Snape pick up a book and look at it with interest. Even at a distance, Remus recognised the cover: it was his father-in-law's latest tome, about the magical nature of souls.

A tiny idea hesitantly crept into his mind. He and Mr Riddle were not especially close – for Merlin's sake, he still called him 'Sir'. But he was a genius. And nothing was more important to him than his daughter's happiness – which, Remus supposed, included making sure her husband wasn't driving himself mad worrying about strange dreams.

Despite his growing nervousness, Remus nodded to himself: yes, he would talk to Lena's father about all of this. And hopefully, he might finally find some answers.

The opportunity to speak to Mr Riddle privately didn't present itself until Christmas Eve. Both Lena's father and Remus' mother came to their house for dinner – an almost clinically polite affair. After they'd finished eating, Hope asked Lena to show her the spare room they were intending on converting into a nursery, as she had plenty of ideas for the design. The two women headed upstairs, leaving the men in the living room with an initial awkward silence, broken when they both tried to speak at the same time.

"So, how are things at the Auror office?" asked Mr Riddle, as Remus started to say, "I'm glad we have this chance to speak–"

They both broke off, apologising.

"Sorry, you go–"

"I beg your pardon–"

"Please go ahead–"

"Oh, no, what did you want to say–"

Mr Riddle held up his hand. "This is getting us nowhere. What did you want to say, Remus?"

Remus inhaled deeply, preparing himself. "All right. There's something that's been bothering me for the last five months, and I thought there was a possibility you might understand what's going on better than me."

The older man arched an eyebrow. "Go on."

"See, I've tried doing my own research into the subject, but I haven't found anything useful," explained Remus. "But your knowledge, particularly of more... obscure... areas of magic, particularly in regards to how it can affect our minds, is practically unparalleled–"

"You don't need to flatter me, Remus," said Mr Riddle wryly. "I'm already intrigued."

Remus swallowed. "Right. Okay: I've been having these recurring dreams. Only, they're not recurring in the sense it's the exact same dream over and over again; rather, they're continuations of each other."

Mr Riddle furrowed his brow. "You mean, they're like chapters of a singular narrative?"

He nodded. "They're all set in the same world – one similar to ours, but also drastically different."

"When you say 'drastically different', do you mean they contain familiar people, places, ideas, but they are often merged together to create something that feels different, or is there content that feels entirely original, that you can't clearly trace to anything you've actually seen or experienced?"

Remus considered this for a moment. "Well... it's a mixture of both, I guess. I see people I know, but their lives are completely different in the dreams – even my own. But there are also things that I seem to implicitly understand while I'm dreaming, but as soon as I wake up, I'm clueless as to what they mean."

"Such as?"

"In the dreams, I'm part of this organisation called 'the Order of the Phoenix', this group of people – some of whom I actually know very well, others with whom I'm barely acquainted – who are fighting against these wizards and witches who are known as 'Death Eaters'."

"Death Eaters?" repeated Mr Riddle curiously.

"I think they're blood-purist extremists," said Remus. "In some of my dreams, we're fighting because I'm defending Muggle-borns from them. And they're led by someone called Lord Voldemort."

For a few seconds, Mr Riddle just stared at him. Then, in a quiet voice, he said, "Tell me more about this Voldemort."

"That's the thing," replied Remus, a little frustrated. "In the dreams, I think I know quite a bit about him. But when I wake up, those things I just know disappear from my mind. I really only remember the things I actually see and say, and any thoughts that are especially articulate in my mind. So I know that instead of saying 'Lord Voldemort', most people only refer aloud to him as either 'You-Know-Who' or 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named'. I know he doesn't quite look human, but I'm not exactly sure what he does look like. I'm fairly certain that at some point in the past he murdered two of my closest friends, but I don't know why, other than the fact that one of them is a Muggle-born–"

"These two close friends," interrupted Mr Riddle, "do you know who they are?"

"Lily and James Potter," answered Remus, subconsciously clenching his fists. "And I think this Voldemort has tried to kill their son Harry several times, but hasn't succeeded, for some reason."

Mr Riddle looked slightly confused. "Why does he want to kill a child so much?"

"Again, I'm not sure. What I do know is that he's recently taken control of Wizarding Britain, and made it hell." Remus rubbed his face tiredly. "And there are these creatures called Dementors that suck out people's souls..."

"This seems like a very detailed dream-world," remarked Mr Riddle.

"Yes, but they don't feel like dreams at all," insisted Remus. "They feel so real, like I'm actually there, experiencing them. I promise you, that's not an exaggeration."

"Hmm... these dreams, do they come to you every night, or are they more sporadic?"

"At first, they were about once a week. But recently, it's been nearly every other night."

Mr Riddle smoothed back his dark grey hair, appearing deep in thought. "I wish I had more answers for you, Remus," he said at last, "but I've never heard of something like what you're describing." He tilted his head to the side. "Have you spoken to Lena about this?"

A small lump formed in Remus' throat. "No," he said slowly, "I haven't."

"Why not..." Mr Riddle trailed off, a realisation dawning upon him. "Something happened to her in this world, didn't it?"

"Yes, but I don't know what," admitted Remus. "I don't think she died. She's just... gone."

"Was she still my daughter?"

Remus stared at Mr Riddle. There was almost desperation in his voice – something he'd never heard from Lena's father before. He wracked his brain, trying to remember every thought his dream-self had had. As he concentrated, another sound permeated his mind. A noise that came from above him, where their bedroom was located.

Da-dum. Da-dum. Da-dum.

"Lena Lestrange," said Remus, then blinked, surprised. The name had just popped into his head without warning. But somehow, he just knew that was the name of dream-Remus' wife.

"Lestrange?" Mr Riddle's expression was indecipherable.

"Yes... that's the family who used to own your house, isn't it?" said Remus, frowning. "I suppose my subconscious must have conflated the two things."

"Yes," said Mr Riddle, after a short pause, "it must have." He looked like he was going to say more, but they were both distracted by Hope's voice. She and Lena were coming back downstairs. "Let me do a bit of digging into the matter," he said instead. "Talk to some other experts and such. I'll let you know if I find anything." He smiled gently. "I'm sure it can't be pleasant to keep visiting such a dreadful world in your sleep."

"No," affirmed Remus. "It's decidedly unpleasant. I wish I could just forget the whole thing." But even as he said it, that small niggling in the back of his mind seemed to whisper, 'No, Remus. Those aren't the bad dreams. This is the nightmare.'

Tom sat down on the edge of his bed, feeling dizzy, and stared at his hands. They were trembling.

Lord Voldemort. He hadn't thought about that name in such a long time, at least fifty years.

When he was a child, his mother had told him the reason he didn't have a father was because Tom Riddle Sr., a Muggle, had died a few months before he was born. Tom had accepted this with very few questions. After all, lots of children in the poor neighbourhood in East London where he'd grown up only had one living parent. Death was always present, whether it was caused by disease, fire, drowning, or human violence. Muggle men were killed in drunken fights late at night on the streets, Muggle women were beaten to death by their husbands in their homes. Growing old was for the lucky.

Then, only a few days before he was due to return to Hogwarts for Fifth Year, he'd seen an article in a Muggle newspaper about a scandal where some man was having an affair with the wife of a respected army officer who was off fighting in the Second World War. The man was named Tom Riddle, and there was a picture of him. He looked almost identical to young Tom, only older.

A furious Tom had yelled at his mother for lying to him, making her weep. Between sobs, she told him that his father had abandoned them, that he had said he never wanted to see her again, or meet his unborn child (Tom wouldn't learn the whole truth – that she had drugged his father with a love potion to make him marry her – until he was seventeen). Immediately, Tom's anger shifted to another target: his father, a cruel and monstrous Muggle.

That year at Hogwarts, Tom obsessed over his lineage – the pride he felt being a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and the shame of his Muggle-inheritance: the name of a father who had rejected him. In a diary he'd bought over the summer, he wrote of his desire for a new name, constantly scribbling down different options. He wanted something that sounded as non-Muggle as possible.

One day, the letters seemed to almost rearrange their selves:

TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE

I AM LORD VOLDEMORT

It was around that time he found the Chamber of Secrets. He'd always been curious about it, as soon as he read about the legend in First Year, but it was only in Fifth Year that he had started to search in earnest, desperate to connect with his famous magical ancestor. He went down the entrance in the girls' bathroom, made his way through the Chamber, and met the Basilisk who had been sleeping down there for almost a thousand years. And it had been so eager to be released, to hunt, to kill...

Tom knew he wasn't the kindest of children. He could be selfish and bitter; growing up poor made it very easy to be envious and spiteful. But he was also the recipient of a self-sacrificing love. His mother was a witch of very limited skill, having never been to Hogwarts or taught properly at home, so it had been easier for her to find Muggle employment as a cleaner for an old, reasonably well-off couple. She worked all day, doing menial work that trained witches and wizards could do in mere minutes, to earn enough to clothe her son and put food on the table for him. As he had grown older and started attending a Muggle school, Merope had taken whatever odd jobs she could to buy him books and stationery. She gave him everything she could, and Tom, despite sometimes feeling embarrassed by her, did love his mother.

So when it was put to Tom that if he really wanted to honour Slytherin's legacy, he needed to set a Basilisk on the Muggle-born students of Hogwarts, he balked. It didn't seem very fair to murder people just because of who their parents were. But if he was truly Slytherin's heir...

In the end, he had smuggled one of the gamekeeper's roosters down into the Chamber and destroyed the Basilisk. It brought him no pleasure to kill a creature who couldn't help its violent nature, but nor did he feel guilty about it. Instead, he collected its venom, fangs, scales and organs, so he could sell them in Knockturn Alley. The proceeds he made were a small fortune, finally bringing himself and Merope out of poverty. It was enough for him to travel the world once he left Hogwarts, gaining expertise in a variety of magical subjects, working as a freelance consultant, and conducting research and experiments so he could write his findings into books. Eventually he was able to buy back Slytherin's Locket, and return it to his overwhelmed mother.

Tom was Slytherin's heir – just not in the way his ancestor had imagined or hoped. He took his inheritance, and used it to make himself into who he wanted to be, refusing to be a slave to the whims and prejudices of a long-dead man. And the name Tom Riddle would be more respected and famous in Wizarding circles than it had even been in the Muggle world.

So he had forgotten about 'Lord Voldemort', until his son-in-law mentioned it tonight, telling him it was the name of a powerful and evil wizard in his dreams who was doing exactly what the heir of Slytherin was supposed to do – ridding the Wizarding world of the 'impure'.

He had barely managed to retain a calm exterior when Remus had said the name. How the hell could he have known it? Surely it wasn't something he had just dreamed up, it would be too much of a coincidence. Remus certainly hadn't seemed aware of any connection between the monster in his dreams and the father of his wife – who didn't seem to be his daughter in this dream-world.

Lena Lestrange. Was it a simple matter of combining the names of the girl and the previous owners of the house in which she'd grown up, like Remus had believed? Or was it more meaningful than that? As much as Tom loathed to admit it, there was something... right about the name.

'What if it's a clue to who her birth parents are?' wondered Tom, feeling a little sick at the thought. 'Maybe that's the reason she was left at the gates of the estate – because whoever it was that brought Lena here thought they were leaving her with her family?'

The more he thought about what Remus had told him, the more dread grew inside him. As far as he was aware, the werewolf had never displayed any sign of precognitive ability, or any form of Legilimency before. But from everything he knew about the way magical minds worked, these didn't sound like normal dreams. So what were they?

He needed to find out – not just for Remus' peace of mind, but his own.

Sunday 28 December, 1997:

Lena had been dreaming of her child. She didn't know what its name was, or how it looked, or whether it was even a boy or a girl. She just dreamed of holding the baby, watching it take its first steps, hearing it say its first words. She would read to the child, hold its hand as they walked down their street, wave goodbye as the Hogwarts Express pulled out of platform nine and three-quarters to take it to its first year of school. In all these dreams, her heart was full of love and she was happy. Ecstatically, euphorically, blissfully happy.

When she woke up from the dreams, all Lena felt was terror and misery. The woman in the dreams did not feel like her at all. She was a stranger who had taken over her life. It felt like the dreams were a part of her subconscious that was trying to comfort her, alleviate her fears about the unborn child and her future as a mother, but all they did was make her even more distressed.

On her and Remus' first wedding anniversary – which was also the fourth anniversary of their first date – Lena was desperate to do something that reminded her of a better time, wanting to escape the wretched present. So in the evening, she took Remus to Berkeley Square, where they had shared their first kiss.

Snow covered the usually green ground as they walked past the giant Christmas tree which had not yet been taken down. Lena no longer fitted into the white woollen dress she had been wearing the day she met Remus, but she still wore her white knitted hat, her green Slytherin scarf, and a large, black overcoat, and her hair was in two low pigtails.

But Remus hadn't commented on her appearance. He had been unusually distracted lately, and Lena didn't think it was just daydreaming about impending fatherhood. Instead, he seemed... perturbed.

Wanting to draw him out of his thoughts, Lena squeezed his gloved hand, and said, "Isn't it such a beautiful evening?"

Remus glanced at her, and offered her a small smile. "Yes... almost as beautiful as you."

Lena laughed. "You're a terrible flirt, Remus Lupin," she told him, her voice light. "And I do mean that in the sense you are very bad at flirting."

"So you've told me before."

Lena furrowed her brow. "Have I?" She couldn't remember ever saying anything of the sort before.

"Yes, at..." Remus trailed off, and shook his head. "Never mind."

She let go of his hand, putting her own on her hips and stopping. "Don't tell me you mixed me up with another woman." She said it teasingly, but she was very much hoping that it wasn't the case.

"Of course not!" said Remus hurriedly. "It just... I think it must have just been something I dreamed."

They had stopped under the tree where they had first kissed, and it didn't escape Lena's notice. She smiled coyly, and moved as close as she could to him with her protruding belly, placing her hands on his biceps. "So you can see the future in your dreams now?" she murmured, angling her head so she could kiss him. "Does that mean you can predict what the rest of the night holds in store for us?"

Remus looked around at where they were standing. "I think to figure that out, a knowledge of history is more useful than Divination," he said, turning back to her. He cupped her face and kissed her lips.

As they kissed, a sense of calm settled over Lena. But it dissipated the moment Remus pulled away.

"Shall we head back home for dinner?" he asked. Resting a hand on her stomach, he added, "Surely you must be getting hungry."

Lena nearly scowled. Could he not forget about the baby for just one night? She wanted him to think of her as his wife on their anniversary, not as an expectant mother.

She ran her hands down his chest, wanting to distract him. "Tell me what you were thinking that night, four years ago, when we came here." It was a demand, but she said it sweetly so he wouldn't notice.

Remus didn't respond immediately, instead threading his fingers through one of her pigtails, playing with the hair absentmindedly. At last, he answered, "I thought you were the most wonderful person I had ever met, and I couldn't understand why you were interested in me, a werewolf with a torn-up face who was nearly twice your age. I was afraid I was in the middle of the most perfect dream, and that I was going to wake up at any second."

Gently tracing the scars on his left cheek, Lena smiled, and whispered, "But it wasn't a dream. Every moment of it was real."

There was a long silence, as Remus gazed into her eyes, and with the hand that was still on his chest, Lena felt the beating of his heart. She felt a rush of envy – he could feel. He could love. He was real.

Lena wasn't real. She just existed. And pretended.

For a second, as Lena gazed back at Remus, she willed him to see through the facade. To realise that she was empty inside. To understand that as hard as she tried, she could never love him, only possess him.

"Yes," said Remus finally, wrapping his arms around her. "Perfectly real."

So... thoughts? Feelings? Questions? I'd really appreciating hearing whatever you have to say.

If you haven't read the Edgar Allan Poe short story that this chapter takes its title from, I highly recommend it. It's in public domain, so you can read it for free on the internet :)