A/N: Well, unhappy news here, folks: Bob decided to come for an unwanted business. (Yes, Bob is my writer's block. We have a close, personal relationship, though I don't like him very much.) I'm kinda at a loss as to where I'm going with this story right now, but hopefully I'll meet up with Joe (my inspiration) sometime soon. Thank you to all of you wonderful, marvelous reviewers. I love you all. I finally figured out the secret to getting people to read the story: post at the right time to get it on the first page. So, thanks again, your reviews boosted my confidence a whole lot. Text in ** shows thoughts.
Summary: The plot thickens! (Well, at least it becomes a bit less watery, anyway) Tem's friends visit him in the hospital
wing. He stumbles on a rather nasty
discovery.
Disclaimer: Tem, Alan, Alyssa, and Fay belong to me,
along with a few other minor made-up characters you won't recognize along the
way. If you do recognize it, it belongs
to J.K. Rowling, goddess of our time. I
don't own anything worth suing for, so please don't. J Thanks!
Harry's Neighbor Part 7
What
Dreams May Come
A soft red light filtered in through the blackness. Tem stirred, cramming his pillow over his head, trying to block out the light. He wasn't ready to surrender to the urge to awaken. The sleep…it had been so peaceful, so nice. And he was afraid of where he might be when he opened his eyes. The last thing he remembered before the peaceful sleep was the horrifying nightmare. What if that snake thing had done it? What if he was dead, and now he was in heaven…or elsewhere? These were too many possibilities for him to comprehend, to want to think about.
Slowly, reluctantly, Tem opened his eyes. The first thing he noticed was that this was not his bed. The second thing he noticed was that everything was white. White linen draped over the window above his bed and from the ceiling, sectioning his bed off from the rest of a bigger room, white linen covering the bed, white pajama robes covering him. *Oh, God…* Tem thought. *I really am dead. What will Mum and Dad say? Their son, killed on his second day at wizard school, just like their friend was. They'll be devastated. And what about my friends? What will they think?*
A stern yet motherly voice interrupted his thoughts. "I hear movement in there. He must be awake. You may see him now, a few at a time. Why don't you three go first?" To Tem's everlasting relief, Fay, Alan, and Alyssa walked in. He wasn't dead. The girls gasped when they saw him; looking into a nearby mirror, he saw that he was extraordinarily pale and had deep black circles beneath his eyes. But he was alive. They rushed up and hugged him.
Alyssa filled Tem in on what had happened while he was 'out'. "We were still at dinner after you took off to meet Harry when he and one of his friends came running down to the hall, screaming for Dumbledore. Nobody knew what was going on, but they left, and the next thing we knew, Professor Flitwick was telling us that you were in the hospital wing. We came up here right away. Other than that, nobody's been able to tell us anything. So what happened?" All three of them looked at him imploringly. Tem shook his head.
"I really don't know. I went up to meet Harry, but he was late, so I sat down against the wall. I must have fallen asleep. The next thing I knew, I was in the middle of that dream from last night. I…" Tem gulped. "I died. Again. And then I woke up here. I don't know what's going on or what these dreams are all about, but I'm too afraid to go back to sleep." The curtains around his bed rustled, and a short, plump woman with gray hair bustled in and addressed Tem's friends.
"I think that you should go now," she said. When they tried to protest, she cut in. "Professor Dumbledore is here to talk to the young man. I will be sending him out as quickly as possible. Templeton needs his rest, and there are other visitors who wish to see him," she said, her lips tightly pressed together as if one more visitor would do him in for good. Tem paled even further at the thought of what awaited him if he dared to go back to sleep. He tried to protest, but she shooed his friends out and left before he could say anything.
It was then that Headmaster Dumbledore himself swept into the small sectioned off area. Tem heard the lady muttering something under her breath about "patients being smothered". She clearly didn't like all of the attention Tem was receiving, but wouldn't say so in the presence of the headmaster.
Dumbledore lowered himself to his knees next to Tem's bed, grimacing in pain as he did so. When he noticed Tem's concerned expression, he smiled. "Don't worry, Tem. It's just a side effect of getting old. Not even Madame Pomfrey has a cure for that." Then his expression softened even further, though his smile turned to a pensive frown. "Now, I know it's not going to be fun, Harry can vouch for that, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened in your dreams. There could be real danger involved here, and I need your full cooperation." Tem nodded, more than a little awed by Dumbledore's presence. He pervaded this sense of…raw power, yet where the ego trip might have been was filled with kindness and understanding. A truly great wizard. There weren't too many of those around.
So Tem began explaining. First he gave a horrifying account of the first dream, then a detailed description of the second. This one, though shorter, seemed to be much worse than the first. When he finished, Dumbledore's face was etched with worry. "Oh, dear," he breathed. "This is much worse than I thought." Without further explanation to the comment, he conjured a piece of parchment and a quill and handed them to a bewildered and frightened Tem. "I need you to draw that knife that you saw. Picture it in your mind's eye and draw every single detail that you can remember. It's very important that you recall it as accurately as possible."
Without trepidation, Tem began to draw, pausing every now and then and peering inward, trying to remember just what he had seen. When he was finished, he handed back a very detailed sketch of a cruelly carved knife, its wavy blade etched with evil magical runes and enchantments, the hilt carved to resemble a horrifyingly real snake's tail, culminating with a real rattle at the end of its wooden grip. Dumbledore visibly shuddered as the parchment was placed in his hands. "Yes…" he said. "I recognize this knife. Unfortunately, it is as I suspected, though I don't know why he chose you…" Dumbledore trailed off, not bothering to explain. He suddenly looked at Tem. "I apologize. My mind tends to wander a bit. I believe I know what is afflicting you, though I don't understand why. I will ask Madame Pomfrey to give you a dreamless sleep potion for the next few days. That will keep anything from happening to you while we try to figure this out. You should take the rest of today and tomorrow to rest, and rejoin your lessons after that. I must take leave of you now." With that, he swept out of the room, robes fluttering behind him. In his absence, the room became very still, the light tone he had put over his heavy comments not lost on Tem.
Outside of his small sectioned off area, Tem heard Dumbledore speaking quietly to Madame Pomfrey. He couldn't make out any of the words, but the nurse's voice rose shrilly. She yelled at the headmaster, not caring who he was, and her tirade ended with a disgusted humph. Tem still got the sense that she had lost the argument. He then heard some steps echoing across the white linoleum floor and Dumbledore's voice again. This time, Harry's voice replied to it. Dumbledore again. This was getting interesting. Tem listened closer. The Headmaster's voice grew lower and his speech more urgent. There was a loud gasp. That would be Hermione. Dumbledore again. Silence. More footsteps, some growing distant, leaving, others coming closer.
Once again, the curtains tweaked open, but this time, Harry, Ron, and Hermione stepped in. Hermione burst into tears at the sight of Tem. Ron snaked his arm around her shoulder and pulled her gently into his chest. He grinned uneasily. "Don't worry about her…she's just a little emotional right now." Harry nudged Ron in the ribs and shot him a warning look and gave a small shake of his head. Ron nodded slightly in confirmation to whatever the silent conversation was between them. Harry stepped forward.
"We can't stay for long," he said. His voice was kind of weird. It was like he was talking to a grieving widow, all hushed and sullen. "Madame Pomfrey says that you have had enough visitors for the day. We just wanted to see how you were." Tem had this panicky feeling rising up in his stomach. It had been there since he had woken up, but he was just now beginning to recognize it. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were just acting a little too solemn for a friend who had just become conscious again.
He hesitated in his answer. "Thanks. I'm fine now. Are you sure she's ok, though?" He asked, indicating Hermione who was still sniffling and sobbing into Ron's now soaking shirt. The redhead answered, guarded in his reply. He was hiding something.
"Well, she's just a little freaked. She found you, ya know? You were all just in the bathroom, hovering in the air with a weird green light about you, screaming. I think that scared her a little bit." His eyes were wide and guilty, the spastic comment hanging in the air. Tem was sick of his friends' attitude already, and more than slightly terrified that he had actually been hovering and it wasn't just in the dream.
"What's going on here?" he blurted out. "Why is everybody treating this like a funeral home? What did Dumbledore say to you that he can't tell me?!" Harry stepped forward, not at all taken aback by the small outburst. He sat slowly on the edge of the bed and looked coolly at Tem. There was no emotion in his eyes. He had mastered the art of hiding it.
"You see, Tem, it's like this…" he said in a strangely calm voice. "Voldemort tried to kill you in your sleep."
\\\\\\\\\\A/N: I'm really and truly sorry that this took so long to come out, and that it's so short. First of all, work has been hellishly busy (I'm working eight straight days this week along with school. I try to have a social life in there, too, sometimes.) and I just could not think of where I was going with this story. I have a little better idea so far, but as of yet, it's still kinda fuzzy. So bear with me for now, and I hope that the next part will be better, longer, and on time. Please review. You guys were awesome about that last time, and I really thank you for it. Keep it up!