Wrap her up in a package of lies

Images flashed through his mind; a girl reading, a man looking angry and holding a crying woman, a pale-skinned boy (a young man, really,) walking on snow covered ground. And then the vision of that strange, evil thing that so haunted him.

Cause if you don't want to talk about it, then… it isn't love…

The girl closed the book, stretched, and began to gather her things. The man continued to console the woman, from whose hand a letter fell. The pale young man stopped next to a tree and beat a fist against it angrily. And that thing… whatever it was, it continued to skulk around his dreams.

He wrote, wrote, wrote. Mostly, he wrote of things he knew, things that were close to him. His lover, Maria, his band, his experiences. But at times like these, when the visions got too strong, he had to write… and this writing was different. Writing about the visions helped them. It eased them. That creature… it stopped coming when he wrote of his visions. But the songs he wrote… so strange… they had this alluring appeal that no one quite understood. And his band always wanted the songs to be recorded. He hated it when those songs were put on albums, but he had to admit, that creature almost entirely left him after he wrote Round Here.

And I guess I'm gonna have to live with that…

He got up. And wrote. The words that ran through his head with the visions of this girl were turning into a song; he could feel it. That creature was getting stronger.

He went to bed that night. When his visions were in full swing, he was always fearful of sleep. But he knew that if he slept tonight, he could stay up for three days without visions. Maybe tonight's vision would complete the song. Maybe this was the last… he hoped this was the last, for everyone. He was edgy with Maria, and the band noticed he was bothered. They called the times of his visions his "writing spurts." Little did they know. Not even Maria knew. He told no one of this creature that forced him to write. His muse. He laughed at the thought. What kind of muse was this creature? Nothing with those eyes could possibly be good. In fact, he could almost feel the evil of the creature. It was like a smell… the thing was… indescribable.

You try to tell yourself the things you try to tell yourself to make yourself forget… to make yourself forget… I am not worried

The girl was now in a room of gold and red with the pale boy. They were kissing. Several others surrounded them, including… he had seen that boy before… he had dreamt of this black-haired green-eyed boy before… when he wrote… what was it he wrote? that song… which? which song? catapult. he wrote catapult when dreaming… when dreaming of this boy, the one that filled him with such loathing… for no reason…

He could feel himself coming out of the vision. The boy had startled him back into reality. He lay there, sweating. That creature was using him to see these people, he knew. And when he broke away, on that occasion when he could break away… he saw the creature. He could see it more often now; now that he was stronger. He could feel himself getting stronger… soon… soon he would find out about the creature… but he ought not think that. The creature… it used his mind, it could see into his thoughts as well, surely. He drifted…

But I'm not going to break… And I'm not going to worry about it anymore… I'm not going to bend and I'm not going to break and I'm not gonna worry about it anymore…

It seems like I should say, "As long as this is love…"

The girl was asleep, the pale boy was asleep, the black-haired boy was asleep, all in their own beds. But he saw the creature… it sat in a chair… a high-backed chair… clothed in black, but he couldn't make out precisely what it was wearing, flowy as it was.

And it spoke. For the first time, he was actually hearing the thing command him, instead of just responding to it.

"Show me Harry Potter. Year 2003," it rasped. The voice, a weak, slimy British slur, made him shiver uncontrollably.

And then it was like a normal vision, with the notable exception of his knowledge of who he was looking at and when and where.

Harry Potter. England, 2003.

The black-haired boy was tall. Impossibly tall, it seemed, to him. The he realized that this was another deviation from a normal vision (if one could ever call his visions 'normal'.) This time, he was not looking at his subjects as if he were there, but unseen, but he was actually inside the body of someone who was there, in 2003, with this Harry Potter.

He looked up at Harry Potter, who seemed so tall and brave and strong. And a voice floated down to him saying, "Yes, love, that's your Da."

And then he watched as Harry Potter walked away, wearing… robes? Robes of some sort. He was walking toward this great big field. Where people were riding on brooms and circling this one woman in black and white referee stripes. And the woman released a trunk and three balls popped out, as if on their own. Two small black ones and an even smaller gold one with… not wings? Wings, on a ball? This can't be right. But this was whatever this person was seeing.

Then a lovely young woman with bright red hair came into his line of vision, fussing contentedly. "Your Da, off playing that daft game; going to get himself killed, I swear. But it was Quidditch Seeker for England or Auror, and I'd rather have him knocked off a broomstick then blasted into a billion tiny pieces by some stray hex."

The lovely woman sighed. Then she smiled at him, whoever he was. "Say 'Da,' James. 'Da.'" She put a finger down to him, and he must have been a baby, for he took hold of it and put it in his mouth.

And then a beautiful young woman, another one, came into view. "Ginny!" she exclaimed. "Hallo, dear. How're you?"

And Anna begins…

"Anna! Hallo, love. We're fine," answered the red-haired woman affectionately, moving to hug the woman. "And you? How's Cal?"

"Just fine. He's really enjoying being an analyst at the Ministry," said the new woman. "It was driving me crazy to have him home, doing nothing." Then she looked down at him, and smiled, showing straight, beautiful teeth over rose-red lips. Her almond colored eyes shone with delight when she looked at him. I must be a cute baby, he thought.

"James looks more like Harry every day," said the new woman, Anna. "Except…"

"Yes," laughed the woman called Ginny. "Except for that Weasley hair."

A man came up behind the new woman and slid an arm around her shoulders.

"Anna, love," he said. He had light brown hair, cut short, and bright blue eyes. He carried a toddler, a girl, with the woman's honey-colored hair and the man's eyes.

"Mummy," said the little girl and reached for the honey-haired woman.

"Charlotte, darling," said the woman lovingly and reached for the girl. She leaned over and kissed the man as she took her daughter into her arms. "Cal, have you seen James? Looks just like Harry."

The man, whom he supposed was Cal, greeted the woman called Ginny and then leaned over to where he was laying in this baby's body and said, "Got his ma's curls, though, eh, Virginia?" He had a pleasant Scottish accent rolling and soothing.

The woman Ginny, leaned over and picked him up. "My little James," she crooned.

He could feel the creature, then, angry. It pulled him violently out of the vision and directly into another. This was so atypical of his visions. They were never this erratic. He had thought that the creature was getting more powerful, but he'd never imagined that it would be able use him for such a long period of time for so many visions at once.

He heard the voice, the creature's voice, hiss, "Show me Draco Malfoy… 2000."

And he felt himself swirl again and fall. But then, impossibly, recover and swing back around. It was as if he were flying. He felt himself laugh and wondered silently who on earth he was now.

He heard a voice come out of his mouth, a female voice. "Nice try, Malfoy. But I'm even betting at dodging hexes than I am at blocking them."

The pale boy from those earlier visions was now a grown man, perhaps about 20, tall and handsome. He stood on the ground, looking distinctly disgruntled. The woman whose body he inhabited shivered with cold just then, and the pale man, Malfoy, noticed.

"Come on, then, old girl, let's call it a practice," he called up to her, erasing the pouting look from his face and smiling.

The woman, whoever she was, flew (who knew humans could fly? Maybe by 2000, they could. That would explain those others who were flying about on broomsticks) down to him. She hopped off her broom (what was it with these people? Broomsticks could hardly be comfortable) and strode masterfully over to the pale boy, er- man… Malfoy.

They walked inside; they had been in the gardens of a huge, old mansion. They continued into the kitchen, where… no… elves? Little pointy eared big-eyed green things, maybe two feet tall scurried around in…towels? How very very strange.

Malfoy snapped his fingers and immediately one of the little elf-creatures came over. "Cup of tea for milady," he said casually. "And I'll have…"

"You want the Viennese I brought back, Draco," said the woman; through the mouth that he could have used had he wanted. "It's fabulous."

"Yes, I'll have the Viennese coffee, two sugars and pure cream," he stressed.

"Yessir, Master Malfoy," answered the elf-thing. "Served into the sitting room, sir?"

The man looked at him, well, at the woman, really. "Is the sitting room acceptable, love?"

And then he got an idea. What if he spoke through her mouth? Could he? "H--," he tried.

"Darling," said Malfoy, looking mildly concerned now. "Are you alright?"

"Adam," he said, with her voice. "My name is Adam."

Malfoy frowned deeply and took her by the shoulders. "Darling?"

"Help me," he said, though her. "Help me. This… creature is controlling my dreams; he's using me to spy on you… and Harry Potter. He's…" He felt the throat close up and then he saw something that was not whatever the woman was seeing.

He was being drawn back, it seemed. Her sight was falling away and now he was seeing only black. And then, a beautiful young girl, perhaps the same age as that Malfoy had been, came up to him. She was breathtaking. Her hair, long and brown-red, was curly beyond belief and fell in gorgeous cascades down her back . Her eyes were a deep, dark, trustworthy blue. She pursed her lips at him.

"Who are you?" she demanded. "And what are you doing in my head?"

He had no idea what shape he was taking now, and he was somewhat frightened. "I—I- my name is Adam Duritz," he said slowly. It sounded like his own voice.

He felt the creature tug at him, pulling him back. But he fought it and began, quickly to tell the woman everything. All he knew was that the creature did not want her to know of what he was doing, and so Adam told her. If she was against the creature, he was with her. And so he told her about how he had been having these visions, these dreams, about all the things he'd ever seen in visions. About the pale boy when he was a young man, about the black-haired boy, when he was a young man and when he was older. About the red-haired girl and the woman with her, called Anna. About being the baby and then about the creature taking him to see Draco Malfoy in 2000.

He felt the creature increase its pull at him, but he gritted his teeth and pulled back.

All of his information seemed to deeply trouble the woman, though she was oblivious to his struggle. She brushed a curl from her forehead and said, "Where are you, what country? Where?"

"California," he answered simply.

"That's in America," she said, puzzling to herself. "America…"

"1992," he said, suddenly. "It's 1992 where I am, asleep."

She looked at him, shocked. "1992? But that was the year…" she trailed off.

And then he felt a tug. It was the creature giving its final pull.

And he tumbled from her mind.

And then he was in that room, with the creature in the hood.

And it advanced upon him and he felt its rage…