The Dreams Within – Chapter Six
By: Lord of the Flame
Edited by: Marcela W.
"Impeccably Fine"
~*~
"Harry" wasn't hungry at dinner that night. It wasn't Mrs. Weasley's, He was just very perceptive of other people's emotions, and the only emotion at the Weasley table that night was tension. And when times were tense, "Harry" tended to lose his apetite. Sirius had always nagged him about it, but it really couldn't be helped.
He had a nagging suspicion why Mr. and Mrs. Weasley were stressed out. He didn't know why Hermione and Ron kept glaring at each other, or why, when they weren't doing that, Hermione was shooting suspicious glances in "Harry's" direction. Ginny, sitting to his left, shot him an equally confused look every once in awhile.
The only people who seemed to be enjoying themselves, currently attacking each other with peas and chopped carrots, were Fred and George. Everyone except himself either didn't notice or were used to the antics of the twins. This would have proved amusing to "Harry" if they hadn't decided to turn on him and began pelting him with bits of vegetables.
Still, no one noticed except Ginny, to his left. She reached deftly into her glass of water for a reason "Harry" didn't know, and said she would be right back and that she had to use the restroom. With a wink at "Harry", and one fist clenched, she started to walk out of the kitchen, passing Fred and George on the way.
Suddenly, they both jumped out of their seats and started flapping their shirts and jumping around like maniacs.
"Aah! It's in my pants!" cried one twin.
"Harry", suddenly aware that this caught the others' attention, couldn't help but laugh. Ginny had slipped ice cubes down the back of each of the twins' sweaters.
Everyone else laughed, too. But they had no notion to what was going on like "Harry" did, which, in his opinion, made it all that much funnier.
The twin who had cried out earlier ran from the room, yelling at the rest of the family not to eat dessert without him. The twin, who'd already fished out his ice cube from under his jumper, was now laughing at the plight his identical brother was in.
After the laughter had died down, and Fred (or was it George?) came back with a the seat of his pants wet, claiming he had a sister to murder, and those unaware of the little prank (known them as the two adults, Ron and Hermione) wanted to know what had happened.
"Nothing," said "Harry". "Harry" caught Hermione giving him another shifty glance. "Fred and George just got what was coming to them." He smiled and nodded.
Mrs. Weasley gave him a worried look. "Harry." Her voice was close to scolding. "You've barely touched your dinner. Are you all right?"
"Harry" fought the really tempting urge to roll his eyes. He was getting very annoyed with that question. People were always asking it at home, too; was it just a 'Potter's' destiny to be worried about?
"I'm very, very, impeccably fine, Mrs. Weasley," said he, failing to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. He hoped this would be enough of an answer to satisfy the worried mother.
By this time, Hermione had given him two more of those annoying glances she was so good at. He locked eyes with her, willing her mentally to stop doing it, but she continued to look at him with suspicion and a bit of contempt.
Had he done something wrong?
À
"Harry" was being plagued by dreams again. This time, he wasn't reminiscing Kyli's death, but something even more horrifying.
He was back in the house on the corner, sleeping in his bedroom, like any other normal day. The room, though, had a reddish tint that he hadn't noticed before. Maybe it was just part of the dream…?
There was a knock on the door, but without knocking, Sirius just walked in.
This dream might not sound very horrifying yet, but when Sirius did his usual routine of trying to arouse "Harry", something was extremely wrong.
"Harry," he called merrily. "Harry! Time to get up! Harry… do we really have to go through this again? Ugh… Harry…"
"Harry" flew upright in bed—Harry! This wasn't happening, was it? Sirius had—no! Sirius wouldn't do that! He must've been imagining it.
Sirius would never, ever, have called him Harry.
Harry…Harry. Not-Harry turned the word over in his mind, analyzing it. For the first time he had arrived, something about the name triggered something in his mind. Familiarity. A sense of recognition. It couldn't be, though—he wasn't Harry, right?
There was something about brooding in the night that made your mind work in odd ways, made it reveal things that you never could've figured out on your own. "Harry" figured that was what was happening—except opposite. The dark was making his mind panic in confusion. Too much information, not enough brain cells to process. Wake up, he commanded his mind, shaking his head a little. I need more than a third of my mind for this.
Then, "Harry" came to realize something. How could he have been so stupid! Harry! Harry Potter!
"Oh, shit!" he grumbled to no one in particular.
À
Ginny woke calmly. Her eyes fluttered open to see the morning sun shining down on her bed. She'd put her bed by the window in the first place because the sun's light made her warm on the coldest mornings. But now, on this hot summer morning, the warmth had made her damp with sweat. Damn it, she cursed mentally, throwing off her blanket. She stripped of her damp pajamas and put on her robe, heading to the bathroom for a shower.
After the trick she'd played on the twins last night, she would have to approach this carefully. She would need to check the shower and all soaps and shampoos for little gifts from Dumb and Dumber (also know as Fred and George). If she knew her brothers, they had put a charm on the showerhead that would mostly likely turn her hair back red. The boys were too much like their father, always finding a loophole in whatever law they felt they needed to break. It was them who found out, with some unexpected research, that the Ministry could trace where the magic came from, but not precisely who had done it. It was easier, this way, for pureblood children to get away with illegal magic during summer vacation.
She knew her mother was still upset about Ginny's new, aquamarine hair, but there was things about Ginny that her mother didn't know. Like how sick she had been of always fitting in. Like how she desperately wanted to do something amazing, like that Muggle bungee jumping thing. Though after careful consideration of her terrible fear of heights, Ginny decided to go with something still extraordinary, but not so scary. Thus, Ginny was now Mermaid-Head, as Fred and George had dubbed her.
Ginny sighed. She really needed to stop watching the TV her father had in the garage, but it was just so entertaining, even though it did blow sparks at you every once and a while (the reason for its confiscation).
Once Ginny got into the bathroom, checked the shower, and slid out of her robe and into the tub, she realized how lucky she was. It wasn't like Fred and George to not take the opportunity to play a prank like that on their baby sister. But the fact that they didn't only told her they were plotting something even bigger, and even more embarrassing.
Once dressed, downstairs, and very cautious of her surroundings, Ginny was finally ready for breakfast. Not-Harry wasn't there yet, thought Ginny amusedly. She had to admit watching him pretend to be Harry was quite amusing, even though deep down she really was worried for Harry. The not-Harry was just so good and funny at being Harry. Every time he pulled one of his aw-I'm-deprived-feel-sorry-for-me faces, she had to basically have a coughing fit to hide her laughter. And that wasn't even mentioning the fact that this Harry noticed her, even though of her as a friend (she hoped).
Fred and George were seated at the table, whispering to each other in hushed voices. This scared Ginny, who took a very wary seat at the table. It frightened her even more when they laughed. They seemed to notice.
"Aw, looky at poor, scaredy Ginny!" said Fred.
"Why, dearest sister, why are you so afraid?" asked George.
"You can cut the crap, both of you." Ginny glared hard at them. She wasn't stupid. "I know you're up to something."
Fred and George looked at each other, clearly appalled. "Who, us?"
Ginny rolled her eyes. "Who else would I be talking to? I'm always the first at the breakfast table, and, as soon as I gave you your just 'desserts' at the dinner table last night---wham! You beat me to breakfast. Smells like trouble cooking to me."
"I don't know," grinned Fred. "Smells like bacon cooking to me."
"Ham, to me."
"Or Ham." Fred shrugged. "Doesn't really matter."
Ginny sighed. According to her maybe-a-little-biased opinion, she was the only normal one in her family. She was the only one, she thought, that was truly concerned (besides her parents, of course) about the upcoming war. All her brother seemed to want to do was have fun, joke around—basically act like everything was normal. Couldn't they see it wasn't?
Nevertheless, Ginny didn't approve of this reckless manner of acting, especially because of the war. Her siblings (mostly Ron) had told her often that she needed to lighten a bit. But weren't her brothers just a bit too bright?
Not-Harry entered the kitchen just then. His hair was more tousled-er than usual, and his eyes were shifty. Up, down, right, left, crossed—something was obviously wrong.
He took his usual seat next to her, and Ron—whenever he woke up—would sit on Not-Harry's other side. Though Ginny never voiced this, him sitting next to her made her extremely nervous. After all, her feelings for the real Harry still remained, and the two boys really were identical twins.
That was how she'd figured out it wasn't him in the first place. Not only was his personality completely, utterly different (she thought her family was stupid for not noticing), but she also didn't feel the same way around him as she did the real Harry. Not to mention that she'd spent so much time watching the real Harry to know his reactions and thoughts before he even thought them. She could read him through and through.
Breakfast was served fifteen minutes later, and Ron was still sleeping. Ginny expected Not-Harry to be hungry after his nothing-dinner last night, but he still wasn't eating. What was he, some kind of anorexic…? She pushed the plate at him, giving him her best 'eat now—Harry would do it' look. But this only made him more nervous. He shook his head. For once, and this was a feeling Ginny wasn't used to seeing on Harry's face—even though this wasn't Harry. She couldn't read his thoughts anymore, because Not-Harry hid them so well.
She looked at him, trying to hide her sympathy. One thing she knew about Not-Harry was that he didn't like to be pitied. He had lost weight since he'd arrived a week ago. He was pale; his whole face was all but white. His eyes kept shifting, but usually remained on his full plate.
Fred and George were laughing at one of their own private jokes, a very common occurrence. But this time Ginny suspected it had something to do with her.
Mrs. Weasley told Not-Harry to eat. "We can't have you going back to school next week looking like that! Dumbledore would have my head!"
Not-Harry ate, however not very much. Ginny knew why, because when she had been thirteen, she had almost been anorexic, trying to impress real Harry with thinness. After a while her stomach had contracted so much it was almost impossible to eat.
"May I be excused?" asked Not-Harry. "I need to use the restroom."
Mrs. Weasley replied, "Of course, dear."
Not-Harry all but ran from the room.
"I have to go too," Ginny spoke up and followed. Even though this sounded extremely suspicious, her family didn't say anything.
Not-Harry went all the way to the bathroom on the third floor, but Ginny didn't know why. Until she arrived at the door, he was retching—throwing up, whatever you wanted to call it, but he was.
He emerged twenty minutes later, pale and sick looking.
"Ginny," he gasped out, like he'd been wanting to say it for a long while. "I'm not doing it anymore—I can't."
"What the hell is wrong?" Fierce worry took a hold of her. He may not have been Harry, but she still considered him a friend.
"We need to talk," was all he had time to stay, because there was an explosion and the cackling laughter of the twins.
"I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!" Ginny screamed at the twins that were nowhere in sight.
À
A/N: Ack! Not-Harry's having a bad morning! I hoped everyone liked that refreshing bit from Ginny's p.o.v. and accepted the tale of why she died her hair (I know that was kind of sudden, but remember, Not-Harry had never known redhead Ginny, so he would've thought it normal. For her, anyway.) I borrowed the magic-on-summer-holidays thing from Just Like Hermione and I've no intention of stealing it. I figured, probably like she figured, that since Fred and George do so much magic during the holidays anyway, that there had to be some kind of loophole in that certain law. And hey, for some good news, we're getting closer to knowing Not-Harry's real identity (maybe chapter 7, but most likely chapter 8). I didn't really know what to do with this chapter, so if it seems a bit off, just ignore it. Also, before the readers point it out, all the mistakes in this fic are intentional. As in they're there for a purpose. So don't abandon me for all the gaping plot holes, okay? I promise they're part of the fic.
Holy shit, that was a long AN. Longest I've ever written, I think. Cool.
Disclaimer: All things expressed herein are not necessarily mine, not necessarily those of my employer, and probably not necessary.
