A/N: I'm not even going to try to make an excuse for the lateness on this, because there in none. Really, I had this part done at least two weeks ago. I guess you could just call it laziness. Just be patient with me for the time being. I just started summer school, two swim teams, and a new job. Can we say "over-achiever"? Or at least "most-likely-to-raise-her-blood-pressure-to-unhealthy-new-levels-very-soon"? (Did that make any sense?) Oh, well. I'm past the point of making sense now. Just read, and enjoy, this part is somewhat slow, with an extremely annoying cliffie at the end. I know, you hate me, whatever. Just review, and have a very nice day.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry, or any of J.K.'s people or places or whatever, and she doesn't
own any of my fabulously brilliant characters, mmmkay?
Summary: Tem gets more immersed in the world of
defense.
Harry's Neighbor-Part 10
A Candle in the Mind
The following weeks were filled with
extra classes for Tem. Training day and
night, he barely had time to eat. He
really didn't mind this, however; all of the work kept his mind off of what
might happen if he didn't train. While
the constant fear of death plagued him, he began to forget what life was like
without it. The precautions and
training became ingrained in his very being, and he didn't know what he would
do without them. At nights, he stayed
on the sleeping draught. Tem found that
he was sleeping much better lately; all of the exercises wore him out so that
he fell immediately asleep every night. He didn't even feel the horrible presence in his sleep that he used to
anymore. He was able to rest better
knowing that he was doing something to protect himself and his friends.
His nights, the time between classes, and his weekends were spent
with Dumbledore, Harry, Ron, and Hermione, learning new spells and defenses
that were far beyond what most kids his age were doing. Dumbledore had sped up the teaching process,
and in a matter of months had caught Tem up to the fourth year students in
Defense Against the Dark Arts class. His schedule was changed so that he now attended class with the fourth
year Ravenclaws, who happened to share that class with the Gryffindors. It would change again in a month or so, when he completed that training
and moved up to fifth year. The plan
was to have him finish through seventh year by the end of second term.
Most of the other Ravenclaw students knew nothing of what was going on. The news of Tem's advanced placement in Defense Against the Dark Arts class spread like wildfire among the house that was so prided on its intelligence, but nobody knew why, other than the fact that he was obviously equal to the task. A few congratulated him, a few were jealous and snubbed him, but most of them just left him alone. The news of his weird dreams had run its course and few people mentioned them anymore, much less attributed them to his extra work in defense.
In addition to defense spells, Tem practiced mind-strengthening techniques ranging from meditation to telekinesis. It had been difficult at first, but now he could meditate for hours on end, visualizing and sustaining pictures of objects in his mind, and was almost able to float a feather without a wand. For now all he could do was push it around a bit. Dumbledore now had him working on controlling the elements with his mind.
Late one night in early December, he lay alone in a remote corner of the Ravenclaw common room, chin in hands, staring deeply into the flame of a white candle, appearing to be lost in thought. He had been there for quite a while, and the candle had burned down to almost nothing but a large wax puddle, but the flame was tall and dancing.
A dark figure padded silently up behind Tem and regarded him for a moment, before emitting a small cough to let him know she was there. Tem jumped slightly, and the candle flame sputtered out. He whisked his wand out from under his robes, muttering "Lumos" in the process and pointing a bright beam of light into the face of a startled Fay.
Sudden recognition dawned on Tem, and he toned down the intensity of the charm. The glaring beam of light was dimmed and no longer pointed in her eyes. "Sorry, Fay," he said, voice betraying his fatigue. "You just startled me. What are you doing up, anyway?" She shrugged, and sat down beside him.
"Couldn't sleep. It's nearly two a.m. What are you doing?" she asked, eyeing the puddle of wax on the floor.
"It's this meditation thing that Dumbledore has me doing. He's trying to teach me how to control things with my mind, starting with the basic elements. Once you get those down, just about everything is made of one of those elements, and that makes it a lot easier to move on. Fire is supposedly the easiest element to control, so he's started me out with a small flame. I've been working with this stupid candle for weeks, and really only tonight was I ever able to accomplish anything. It's easy enough once you get the hang of it. Do you want to see it?" Fay nodded vigorously.
"Hold on," Tem paused for a moment, plunging his hands into the depths of his robes, finally producing a half-melted candle. "I was practicing on this one last night, and I got frustrated and quit. I guess I forgot about it." He stuck it down in the center of the almost-cooled wax pond in front of him and lay down directly in front of it; chin resting in hands as before.
"Check this out," he said, and then seemed to tune her out and began staring deeply into space. His eyes grew wide and his attention seemed to leave the room; Fay would have been surprised if he had heard her cough this time. Suddenly, to Fay's delight, she heard a small fwoomp noise, and a new flame popped up on the candle stump, lighting their corner of the room with a soft glow. Tem smiled, then concentrated on the candle again. He made the flame shrink until it almost snuffed itself out and then suddenly rise again until it almost consumed the wax base. He split the flame and then there were two dancing, side by side. He split the two again and made four tiny flames move about in a circle, weaving in and out, growing and then shrinking, dancing from side to side. He turned each one of the flames a different color one a sparkling gold, another deep purple, the third a gleaming silver, and the fourth shimmering green. The flames then rose tall, and twisted themselves together, forming a multi-colored braid effect, and then all at once seemed to melt together into one normal little blaze again just before it shrunk and blinked out all together.
Fay was deeply impressed. Tem, who had remained tense and rather not-all-there during the
little display, let his breath out and relaxed a little; his effort seemed to
have taken a lot out of him. His chin
remained in his hands, and he appeared to be asleep, until he spoke. "Wow, I've never done that before," he
muttered thickly, as if in a dream, and then fell back into his light doze.
After a few moments with no sign of him moving, Fay
reached over and laid her hand on his shoulder. He jumped lightly, like he tended to do in class when he fell
asleep, and seemed suddenly awake again, standing up and stretching. "Well, that was interesting. I think I'll go up to the dorm now. G'night." He left without waiting for Fay to answer.
"That was just weird," she said to the empty room.
**********************************************************************************************
As Tem walked the corridor to his
dorm that night, he thought of the strange way he had left Fay. He didn't know why he left that way. Heck, he really hadn't known what to say to
her, just that he had really wanted to impress her with the candle
trick. And it had worked. Somehow, he had managed to pull a bunch of
colors from somewhere and make the flames start to dance. But how? That was the main thing. He had
stayed up very late every night for the past three weeks just trying to get the
flame to do something: anything, really. And then, all of the sudden, it just clicked tonight. Before Fay had come down, though, all he had
been able to do was conjure a small flame and hold it, making it rise and fall
occasionally. Maybe it really was just
easy to control once you got the hang of it. But he felt there was something more than that.
When he reached his room, he let
himself in softly, so as to not wake the others, just like he did every
night. He really didn't think the
others knew how late he stayed up most of the time. He had learned to function on a very little amount of sleep in
the past few months; three to fours hours a night usually sufficed. On the dressing table next to his bed, he
found a freshly brewed Dreamless Sleep potion courtesy of Madam Pomfrey. His nose wrinkled at the mere thought of it,
and he decided he just wouldn't go to sleep that night, and would pour the
potion out the window in the morning. It had worked in the past.
In spite of the extreme fatigue he
had felt after the candle experiment, he now felt quite awake and pulled out
his latest journal and a pen. The pen
felt strange to him now. After all
those months of using a quill non-stop, it felt oddly heavy and strange not to
have to balance an inkbottle while sitting in an awkward position. Though wizards tended to frown on Muggle
pens, Tem somehow felt that quills didn't quite suit his journals. These pens connected his Muggle past and his
Wizard present and helped him feel at home somehow, strange though it may seem
to those that weren't extremely sleep deprived.
Barely pausing to think, Tem began
to write:
Dear
Journal,
Well,
Dumbledore has me working harder than ever in my DADA classes. I'm working day and night, every chance I
get. Tonight we focused on the
Banishing Charm. I had a little trouble
at first, but then got pretty good at it, especially when Harry and Ron started
throwing cushions at me from all sides. Everyone is amazed at how fast I'm learning all this stuff, but it seems
to come pretty naturally. I have this
sneaking feeling that Dumbledore might want me to start going without the
sleeping potion soon. While this might
be a relief (I really hate the stuff) it's really scary to wonder what might
happen if I can't control my dreams. What if I can't be as good as everybody seems to think I am? Will I be killed this time? Or the next time? And what then? Will Harry
be killed? Or will Voldemort, being the
evil git he is, miss and hit another one of my friends with the curse?
These
are the thoughts that have been going over and over in my mind lately. The only thing that seems to get my mind
cleared is the meditation I've had to do recently. Tonight, I finally got the flame to move. You know, the candle one I've been griping
about for the past two weeks? And boy,
did it move! I even made it dance and
change colors with my mind. I don't
know how; I really don't. I just wonder
what else I can do. Fire is supposed to
be the easiest element to control. I
wonder what Dumbledore has up his sleeve now that I've mastered this. Or maybe I can keep quiet and just practice
on this for a while. I found the flame
exercise quite relaxing; I almost went to sleep after I had finished!
Well,
the end of the term is coming soon, which also means Christmas Holiday. I should be happy, but Mum and Dad are
pressuring me to come home for Christmas. Dumbledore and Harry seem to think that I should stay here for my own
well-being. To be honest, I really
don't want to leave. It would be nice
to just stay here with all my friends, not to mention reassuring if I could
continue my lessons. I still haven't
told my parents about the whole Voldemort affair. They were very happy to hear that I was placed in advanced DADA
classes, but that was as far as I told them. I don't want them to worry about me, even if they have a right to. After what happened to their friend, I'm
really afraid that they'll take me away from Hogwarts and not let me come
back.
To
get out of going home, I tried to make the excuse that I wanted to stay with
Harry over Christmas, because he has no family and all, and you know what Mum
has the cheek to do? She invites him
over!! What am I supposed to say to
that? She wants an owl back soon
(preferably tomorrow) saying whether or not he can come. I still have to talk to Harry about it. Maybe I should just tell her that Ron and
Hermione are staying, too, and they don't want him to leave. Of course, with my luck, she'll just invite
them over, too. This just isn't fair. I mean, it's not like she knows it or
anything, but it is my life on the line here. Parents are so unreasonable.
I
really need to keep training. As I get
higher up, the lessons take longer for me to learn. I finished "First Year" in about three weeks. After that, Second Year was about four,
Third Year five, and now I'm just starting what I guess you would call Fourth
Year. I want to be almost finished, if
not completely by the beginning of next term, so that I can have plenty of time
to finish through Seventh Year. I don't
know when I'm supposed to start "experimenting" on my dreams to see if this
training is actually working, but I think it will be after Sixth, maybe even
Seventh Year. I really don't know what
I'm going to do next year if I finish all seven years this year. I'll have to add that to my mile-long list
of Things to Ask Dumbledore.
Reading
back over this, I realize just how desensitized I've gotten to this whole
Voldemort thing. Well, maybe not desensitized,
but I certainly don't sound terrified, now do I? Truth is, I'm scared to death. I'm just used to the fear. It has become a part of me, just like
Hogwarts, and Harry, and Fay, and Alan, and the suit of armor guarding the
Ravenclaw entrance. It is a thing to
live with, but not like, just like Snape. I'm so sick of being afraid all the time. I'm so sick of having to be constantly on guard and training
non-stop. I just want to go to sleep
without a stupid potion, and without worrying that I might get killed. Any moment, the dreams could come back, and
I might not be ready. Oh, no, there I
go again. I just need to be prepared,
and I don't think I can do that while staying home over break, but I also can't
explain it to my parents because I know what their reaction would be. Most wizarding families know that
Hogwarts is the safest place in the world to be, but my Muggle family just
wouldn't understand. They are already
worried about me going off to a strange school where they can't see me all the
time.
If
I could sigh on paper, I would. Damned
if I tell them, damned if I don't. Damn. Well, this is something I'm
just going to have to figure out later today. I just noticed that the sun is almost up, so I guess I should start
wrapping up. Maybe I can get to the
showers before the rest of the house wakes up. Maybe that will wake me up a bit. I can barely keep my eyelids propped up as it is, but I guess I
have to live with it for the time bein
Tem's head, which had been nodding considerably, dropped unceremoniously onto the page with the unfinished sentence. As the sun rose higher in the sky, Tem fell deeper into sleep, the untouched sleeping potion sitting stale and devoid of magic on the dressing table beside him. In his head, a dark mist began to rise, and Tem began to dream for the first time in several months…