3 Dark and Deadly Visions The next few days went by very quickly with nothing very important in them and the 15th had never seemed so close. The only thing that was not as normal as it would've been before the game was the fact that Aunt Petunia would not let anyone watch the television because all it played were the goals that David Beckham had scored. She had locked the gifts that Dudley had received in a little cupboard above the kitchen refrigerator and she was in an extremely sulky mood. So tonight was the night before the 15th, the 14th in other words. Harry was really tired from the long day that had been full of Aunt Petunia's wining. So he lay in bed and closed his eyes. Soon, he fell asleep. He was drifting on a cloud through a light and shiny forest filled with flowers, welcoming animals, and good feelings. Then a cloud, dark and grey, frightened everything away and Harry was left with the rain, clouds, and a dark forest. The forest began to transform. The cloud Harry was sitting on drifted lower descending into the forest until he couldn't see light anymore, all was dark. A bony hand touched Harry's shoulder and a chill ran down his spine. the forest turned into a chamber, but still no light was seen. Harry ran from the fingers.he ran through a door and through a corridor hearing light breathing sounds from behind him. he reached for his wand and tripped, he couldn't move, no matter how he struggled, he was paralyzed, Harry couldn't get away from the bony fingers. A hand grasped his arm and pulled him back to the chamber. a torch was lit and Harry saw the face of his attacker: a scarred boy who looked like he was only 22, with dirty, light brown hair and black eyes. He was as thin as a stick and had dry skin which looked as though it had been beaten with a whip. He bent over Harry and put his lips to Harry's. Harry felt as though he had just gone on a rollercoaster and it had just ended, the feeling of fun being dragged away from the experience. Harry closed his eyes and fell into a disturbing sleep, but his soul had been dragged out by the lips of the boy. The boy took Harry's wand and said a curse which trapped the soul and the boy walked through a door with the soul kicking and fighting after him. the door slammed after the unhappy spirit. Harry woke up; sweat dripping down his head into his hands. He jumped out of bed very shakily and grabbed a paper and a quill. He wrote down the dream as quickly as he could before it faded into his memory. Ron and Hermione can help him now because they know what he was dreaming. * * * Harry lay awake until the sun rose, flinching at any creak that he heard. He only got up when he could hear the movements of Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon. As he got up, he shook and trembled. He got downstairs slowly and surely and went to the kitchen to see what time it was. The time was 11:55; he still had a few boring hours to go. He had fruit for breakfast and went to pack his clothes and stuff for Ron's house. 12:30. 01:30. 01:45. Yes! Fifteen minutes to go. Harry went back upstairs and dragged his trunk and Hedwig's empty cage down the stairs and into the living room. He said goodbye to Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia, and Dudley who had finally managed to get his David Beckham cap from Aunt Petunia. Uncle Vernon didn't look too happy to say goodbye to Harry because Harry would be happy at Ron's house. The fondness for Harry that could be found on the day of the soccer game was nowhere to be seen. Harry headed for the fireplace. He took a pinch out of the pouch of Floo Powder and through it in the fireplace, shouting 'the burrow' before his head started to swim. * * * He arrived at the Burrow a few seconds later, sliding on the floor. Mrs Weasley pulled him up and hugged him tight. 'Good to see you Harry!' She said to him. The rest of the Weasley's pulled Mrs Weasley off Harry and greeted him themselves. Hermione was already there. Ron led them up to his room. Harry showed them the note he had written about his dream and they looked panicky as they read it quietly. 'Harry, you know last year, you had that dream about the old man who was killed by um. him?' Hermione asked warily. 'Who? Voldemort? Yeah?' Harry replied as Ron flinched. 'Well it was true wasn't it? I mean, he did. he did kill that man.' 'Hermione spit it out!' 'I'm just saying that what if you dreamt something real. something true. What if that dream you had last night really happened?' 'Well, I don't know.' The conversation was forgotten and they went down to lunch. After a delicious lunch, they trooped up to Ron's room again. They sat on Ron's bed, talking about what they had done over the summer. Harry took out the beans and Ron gazed at them. 'Those are supposed to help protect you?' 'Yup.' Harry replied. 'You'd better take them now in case we need them' Hermione demanded. 'Go now.' 'Ok.' Harry said, knowing that she meant that he should take them now in case the dream did come true. He went to the nearest bathroom and swallowed the beans. They tasted funny, almost too sweet, but at the same time, sour. He walked back to Ron's room with a tickling sensation in his stomach. He felt taller, slimmer, and older than before. 'You guys? I feel sick. Those beans were disgusting.' Harry lay down on the bed and groaned. Hermione grabbed a pen and a quill and began scribbling. When she had supposedly finished, she held up her note and read it out loud: Dear Professor Dumbledore, Harry took the beans a few minutes ago and he is feeling ill. He says there was a P.S. sign on the bottom of the note you sent him, but it was ripped off during the postal flight. Please can you send us what you had written on the bottom of that letter? Thank you, Hermione 'You don't need to send him that,' Ron said, 'Harry's probably just feeling sick because he ate too much.' But even Ron couldn't hide his concern for long. 'Ron! This is not just because of your mother's food or something. It's magic, Harry might have had to drink it with milk or something!' Hermione snapped at him. 'Now, can I use Pig to send him?' Ron, a little upset that Hermione was so right all the time, said, 'Make sure you tell him to come back HERE when he is finished delivering. A week ago, Pig was sent off by Percy to deliver an extremely important message to the Minister of Magic and Pig didn't come back for six days! We found him in a tree eating a mouse. Percy's reply was ripped and not extremely easy to read. Pig was somehow a little bit drunk as well. Strange, if you ask me.' Hermione left to go get Pigwigeon. After and hour of talking, groaning, and especially waiting, Dumbledore's reply arrived. Hermione read it out aloud: Dear Hermione, Harry is undergoing a change. He feels sick because the beans are utterly revolting and make the stomach feel tremendously ill. Tomorrow Harry will be taller, slimmer, fitter, and stronger. These changes are so that when his invader attacks him, he is physically prepared for combat. Don't worry, Harry will feel fine in no time. Dumbledore 'All right Harry, you'll be Ok tomorrow.' Ron said kindly, 'It's eight o'clock and.' 'Yeah Harry, you should go to sleep now,' Hermione cut in. Harry got into bed and closed his eyes. Ron and Hermione went out the room and closed the door behind them. Harry was left alone again. Facing the thought of sleeping was not what Harry wanted to do now. He might have another dream. But it was too late, with the sickness in his stomach and the way his body was changing, he was too tired to fight it. He was drifting back, to that same room, with that same door. The boy was obviously doing something terrible to the spirit behind that door, screams and thumps and crying noises were the only noise that Harry could hear. Then Harry began to feel immense pain, almost as though he were being ripped apart. He felt as though he would die. The boy came back through the door and carried Harry out into the corridor and into another room where he could see three bodies lying on the floor of the cold chamber. two of the bodies looked like. Ron and Hermione. But the other body was a girl that Harry thought he had seen her before, but couldn't figure out who. They were mangled; their bones were broken, cuts, blood, tear marks were down their faces. They had been tortured to death. The boy took Harry to a nearby room and cut him, hit him, whipped him, grabbed his arms and tangled them up so savagely that it was only a few seconds of excruciating pain and then the CRACK of bone. Harry cried and cried, but there was nothing he could do, he was paralyzed without his soul. he was defenceless, useless, and was gonna look like his friends when the boy was finished with him. He could only feel, and he sure felt a lot. 'Harry, Harry! Wake up Harry! Harry please wake up!' Hermione was shaking him. Harry sat up and wiped his dripping forehead, he was shivering and tears were coming freely down his cheeks. He grabbed the piece of paper next to his bed; he found a pen and began writing what had happened in his dream. As he wrote, Hermione and Ron watched what he was writing and read the dream with horrified looks on their faces. 'We thought you were having a fit, you were hitting yourself and moving around and breathing like you had just run fifty miles. Are you Ok, Harry? Should we go wake your mom Ron?' Ron, who had been sitting next to Harry staring at Harry's dream, said quite quietly, 'This is another dream remember? It could happen couldn't it? And yes I think we should go to my mom.' They walked down a few levels and went into Mr and Mrs Weasley's bedroom. There was a clock on the wall that read 03:15, Harry had been asleep for a few hours, but it felt like the dream was 15 minutes long. Ron woke Mrs Weasley up first and then Mr Weasley. They all went down to the kitchen and Ron, Harry, and Hermione explained why they had woken them up. They told the two grown-ups that Harry had eaten the beans (the grown-ups knew about the beans already) and felt sick so they sent a letter to Dumbledore and he said Harry would be Ok. They said Harry had been having nightmares for the last two nights. The grown-ups were shaken as they each read the notes that Harry had written. Hermione made it clear to them that the last time Harry had a dream, it was actually true. When they were finished, Mrs Weasley fainted and fell off her chair. They picked her off the floor and she made them some tea with rather shaky hands. 'We will tell Dumbledore about this if you don't mind Harry,' She said to Harry while passing him a warm cup of tea, 'Arthur will give you a sleeping spell now that will make you sleep without nightmares.' Harry, Hermione, and the three Weasleys climbed the stairs into Ron's room. The three kids got into bed and were all given the sleeping spell by Mr Weasley. Harry found himself drifting into a dream with nothing in it, but peace and quiet. There was not a worry in the world. Well? What da ya think? Long isn't it? Gotago...