Disclaimer: I am not J.K. Rowling, so I don't own any of these wonderful characters that I love so much. Also, the title is taken from a song on the 1980's children's television show, Fraggle Rock under the same title.
A/N: Ok, so I owe you all a huge apology. You see, I originally promised myself that I wouldn't even post this fic until I had finished the second chapter or had the time to finish it, but I soon became anxious and gave in. So I had the ending of school to deal with (which includes finals and all things wonderful like that), a new musical to be cast in and now go into tech for, OotP to read, and life to deal with. Not to mention a bit of writer's block. But here it is, finally. I hope you like Chapter Two as much as you all liked Chapter One. I'm a little nervous and for a while considering dropping entirely (this was after reading OotP). You have The Jedi Wizard Hobbit to thank for that, she convinced me to at least write this chapter and see if you all thought I should continue with it as if it's just a PreOotP fic and therefore holds no sign of any of the new bits of information given to us.
What do you think? Believe me, this is so up to you. I figured I owed you a second chapter but the future of this fic is all dependent on you.
Before I get into responses to all your wonderful reviews that I am oh so grateful for, I have some thank yous to shout out. I must thank first and foremost, The Jedi Wizard Hobbit for being so wonderful. For being my beta-reader, support, critic, and just everything really. Time for shameless plug, read her fic, it's really really good. Ok, I think that was discrete enough. I also have to thank The Treacle Tart for her constant source of inspiration and for actually reading this, I honestly didn't think that by mentioning it once you would read it, let alone like it. I'm truly honored. JennaMae for just being so damn awesome. Jenn for actually coming up with the Challenge and all and getting me a head start on this. She really is a kick ass girl and she even likes the story so far. Yay! And yeah, everyone as I thanked before. And now you, the readers. I hope you have all come back to read on and those of you that are new, I hope you will enjoy.
Critic – Wow, the odd thing is that never in my existence as a writer did I think I would be writing suspense. But I'm extremely honored that you think I did so well. Writing this fic has been, well, different from what I'm used to but still tons of fun. And yes, it is sad and I hate to say it probably won't pick up for awhile. But I hope that I can keep up with it. This chapter is a little less action, a little more thought process so I hope it can still keep you reading and attentive. But thank you for the wonderful compliment didn't ever think I would be compared to Edgar Allen Poe!
Ginni – Ah yes, a fellow H/G shipper, so glad to see you. I read a lot of H/G fics and I'm so glad that you think I'm doing it well and right. I only hope I can keep up. And if you're ever looking for good H/G fics, (I know they're a little hard to find at times and sift through the overflow of HP fics now) you can just e-mail me at beingreen@comcast.net and I can send you list of ones I think are really good. Sorry I took so long in updating but I hope you like what I've done, and thank you so much.
Bucky – Yeah, I kinda failed on the updating soon part, didn't I? Oh well, I think given all of the confusion and haze after reading OotP is a good excuse. No? Oh well. I am truly sorry, but I'm so happy that you like it.
Punkin – Oh how my head hangs in shame of lateness. Then again, I know fics that haven't been updated in over four months and they defiantly have left me on the edge of my seat ever since. I see you are a very well read H/G shipper. I haven't gotten through as much as you have but I'm thrilled that I've got your stamp of approval. I only hope I can deliver. Also, love the favorite quotes you posted, classics really. You have impeccable taste.
Erika Skyfire – Well thank you. It's really nice to see that you like that part in it. I put a lot of thought into all the characters, but above all of them I have to say Ginny is one I contemplate most on. I think she's an incredibly intriguing character and I love writing her because we all can relate. And in this situation it seems only right that the thread she hangs onto is her dreams. I'm so delighted to see you agree.
Maddie – Dear, I hope I did as you asked, but then you'll have to tell me once you get back from England. Oh how the jealousy is seeping.
LivEvil – Well, you seemed to enjoy this. And what was more important (to me, at least) was that you did after the release of OotP. That meant a lot to me. Well I hope you like Chapter Two and I'm so overjoyed that I can give it such an anxious reader.
And without further ado, I present Chapter Two. (Oo! A rhyme! Oh I really need to get a life.)
Dream A Dream And See
By SadDiamonds
Chapter Two
Harry's eyes snapped open. He stared at the paint-chipped ceiling for a moment, trying to catch himself from falling back into Privet Drive and out of Ginny's mind.
He took a deep breath, got up on his feet, sat down at his desk.
He picked up his neglected quill and parchment, and as he reached for his glasses, he realized that he had fallen asleep with them on.
He dipped his quill in ink and wrote about a mile a minute. Knowing that if he slowed down for one second he would fall behind the ticking clock in his subconscious, allowing him only a short amount of time to focus on what had happened. In only a few moments he would shut it out and not let the overload of emotions set in.
When he was finished, he ran over it once more in his head to make sure that he had included all the information that was necessary to finding her that he knew of.
Dear Professor Dumbledore,
As you probably already know, Ron Weasley's sister has gone missing. She was taken by Death Eaters to be interrogated so she'd release the information of where I was being kept during the summer. I don't know whom else to turn to with this information, but I trust that you will know what to do with it to help in the search for her.
My scar gives me visions of Voldemort's present actions sometimes. Although I don't know much of their whereabouts, I am certain that they took her into a dungeon somewhere and have now released her. I know this is very vague, but I am telling you all I know for certain. I hope I have helped in someway or another.
-Harry Potter
He folded the letter, addressed it, and sent Hedwig on her way.
With a quick sigh, he returned to his desk, took out another piece of parchment and his quill, and began his Transfiguration summer essay that he had neglected to start. It took him only a few moments to get going, and then he was a hundred feet deep into his studies. Not looking up for the sun to rise, and hours later, set. He was digging himself into his work, into anything he could to distance his mind away from what he had seen, what he had felt.
What she had felt.
He only knew that he wasn't ready to wake up to that. He had to keep pushing himself or else he would break.
*****
She was cold.
That was the only coherent thought she could come up with at the moment. Everything was buzzing and flying through her mind that the only thing she could note, the only thing that she knew for certain, she was cold.
She couldn't tell how many times night had fallen or for how long she was locked in her state of sleep. There was no calendar she could keep in her mind to inform her of how far time had gone without her. Trapped in this alien land, the forest eating her alive as she waits for a savior.
The dry earth sifts through her fingers as she drags her hands up to her neck, feeling the unmistakable ache due to the movement tauten muscle to muscle, down her spine. She clasps them together tightly and pushes them into the space between the hard ground and the soft warm skin of her neck. In that crevice she tries keeping herself warm while her body is contracting and curving into itself. As if warming her hands can bring life to the rest of her bloodied and broken shell.
She shivers in empty air, breezing over the solitude of her state. Her body curves more and more into a desperate clutch to her own skin. An empty grasp, trying to hold onto something, anything that will allow her cold consciousness to wrap around, but only found herself. She needs the comfort of another. A brother's protective grasp. A mother's tender hold. A father's warm embrace.
Although the loving touch of a certain boy would bring such comfort that there could be no words of description, it is a dream. And after saving him, she awakens back into the realization of her one-sided affection and focuses on the comfort she should have. The family she needs to hold her, now more than ever. The ones that she knows will always be waiting in the warm walls of home. She needs that security, that comfort of familiarity. Her family, the ones that love her and will never betray her.
Not like Tom.
She feels the sting of her tears inside the corners of her eyes. Remembering the deceit of the one friend she thought she had, the one she revealed so much, so openly to. She laid her heart on his blank pages only for him to sink his fangs into the layers of trust and devotion. Spread the venom of his evil through her veins until she was just as much a part of the crime as he. The ever-pressing knife of his deception could still manage to slit through the memory strands of her heart.
Seeing him, feeling him press over her again with his mere presence, made her tremble. He was very much alive and she could not run from that any longer.
How am I going to sleep at night? He will be there, under my eyelids, waiting for the safety of the dark, and then take me again. But then why did he let me go?
She was still too unstable to ponder the answers to that question. She needed to focus on finding a way out of this hole in time where he had placed her to make her forgotten in the world.
She closes her eyes and focuses on the sounds of the forest she's locked in, trying to find a ray of light. But the squeals and cracks of the darkened forest biting the air only lessen her focus. The fear carried in the wind numb any pain she would feel through her torn body and she refrains from any further movement. She knows of the internal damage as well as exterior, but if she doesn't move then she won't feel it. She could forget her pain and wash herself with any sense of hope she could find. But all that was left on the forest floor was fear, and it was eating away at her.
Her senses heightened with paranoia, her eyes darting from crevice to crevice, trying to prepare her for the night crawlers that would surely come searching for her.
And yet she couldn't let go of the hope to rest her eyes on a familiar figure, a relative of any kind, beaming through the shadows. Perhaps the Death Eaters had taken her as far from her home as Romania, not knowing Charlie resided there. He would come through the trees, searching for a stray dragon's tracks, and instead, find her. He would gather her up in his arms as he had done when they were much younger and carry her all the way out of this void, into the arms of her home.
She closes her eyes and her lips curl as she plays the footage of her childhood on the template of her mind. She ran away from them, giggling madly as they pretended to be slower than she. Then Charlie swept her up in his arms before she could notice he was behind her, and spun her in super-speed circles, making her fly in the warm sunlight. Laying fat raspberry kisses on her face, only making her squirm and yet anxious to play the game once more.
She is lost in the warmth of memory but is pulled back down by the howl of the night air again. It's singing haunting melodies of sharp shadows, crawling faster and faster towards her. Just waiting to slit her deeper than she's already torn.
She knows there is no hope of her standing on her own in this place. She is far too broken and it will only be hours before the forest around will take her. Too late to save. So she waits and she tries desperately to mute out her surroundings while clinging to that last stretch of hope for salvation.
*****
This is bloody ridiculous.
He kept telling himself this as he hovered just far off enough not to be seen and still observe her with a keen eye as the moon waxed on. Time was a valuable thing, and he hated letting it go to waste. Watching her quiver in the black forest night, waiting for some Knight in Shinning Armor to rescue her was a perfect example of a waste of his time. But with his father's words lurking in his mind, breathing down his neck, there was no other choice but to stay.
When his father had approached him with a mission for the Death Eaters, his father's most distinguished and respectable society, Draco had been more than thrilled. He wanted to serve and do well by the family name, reinstate the honor of the Malfoy's, one of the most prestigious pureblood names of all time. But if he had known it meant sitting in a tree for several hours just to watch this girl and wait for her precious prince to show up and try to save her, then he might not have been so eager for the job. There was, however, no doubt that he would be repaid his due in good time.
Still, the task was becoming an increasingly tedious one and Draco so longed for Potter to just show up and be done with all this waiting. Then Draco could inform his father, have Potter captured and taken away by the Death Eaters as planned. But the Boy Who Lived was sure taking his bloody well time in doing so and Draco was becoming more irritated by the moment.
And to be honest, he was finding it hard to stay awake. Hard to keep his focus on a girl he could care less about and an eye open for an enemy he longed to see fall. It was deep into the night and he would surely be in his own bed by now if it weren't for that stupid twit of a boy everyone always made such a fuss over.
It was hard to understand why that boy was so special, so remarkable, that he always hogged the spotlight. It didn't make sense, but it seemed as if Draco was the only one that saw it that way. So he sulked while hiding in the forest. Angry at his ridiculous task, at his arch-nemesis for taking so long, and this stupid girl who was shaking now.
She always was a weakling, could never handle pain and show real bravery, being a Weasley and all. He bet that she just took one look at a Death Eater and fainted. And now he was left to baby-sit. It was insufferable being crouched up in that tree for so long, but he felt safer up there than on the forest floor and more importantly he had a better view. So he waited and watched the girl in her state of terror.
Usually he would be thrilled. Watching a Weasley crawl, and scream, and beg for mercy? Almost as sweet as seeing Potter's face while they did it. Potter probably would cry. Cry for Mummy and Daddums and then for his poor pathetic friends that he couldn't save because he didn't have what it took to save them. And it would all be a complete waste, but for those brief moments Draco would feel the sweet glory of justice that would keep him happy for the rest of his life.
Usually Draco would love this.
But he didn't.
She was being far too quiet and far too still. She wouldn't crawl for shelter, she wouldn't scream for help. She just lay there, waiting. As if knowing there was no use in trying to crawl away. Whatever fate had in store for her she was resolutely waiting for it. And this threw him off completely. He wasn't expecting that, not from a character such as the youngest and most lovelorn Weasley. She was the damsel in distress, Potter was the hero, and Draco was the villain, simply put. But the Weasley girl was silent, Potter was no where insight, and Draco was considering abandoning his mission entirely except he knew he couldn't leave the girl.
Whoever was writing this epic had done something terribly wrong.
But Draco didn't let himself think another minute on it. He instead decided to use this time to think of all the wonderful things he could get his father to do for him after delivering Potter. A Firebolt perhaps, something to step upon his rival with. Then Draco would really shine on the quidditch field.
Draco reminded himself he needed to make sure the girl hadn't moved and nothing had changed in the scene below. He glanced down and noting that everything was as it had been minutes earlier, silent and still lay the battered Weasley and no Potter, Draco returned to his own meanderings.
Having the same broom wouldn't do. No, he needed one that was better than that, something that would show his undeniable superiority to the famous Harry Potter.
He checked below again. Nothing.
But then maybe a broom wasn't the best thing. He was certain he could get his father to buy him things much more valuable than that. Surely there were all sorts of different expensive, luxurious items Draco might have for his own by the time school had started. An invisibility cloak would come in handy with playing tricks on all the first years, terrorizing the school body as ingeniously as only he could.
A glance. Only Weasley.
But he had already asked for one years ago and his father insisted that they simply weren't made any longer. Besides, there were far more valuable and useful trinkets Draco could possess that would help him in pissing those he disliked to the point of their own downfall. He had remembered hearing of how faerie blood, though extremely rare and thus extremely expensive, when drunk would seep through the bloodstream until reaching the internal reproductive organs and eat away at them until they were rendered useless.
Check, girl. No Potter.
And of course one would feel the organs disappear as if some animal were burrowed inside their body and eating away at them. It's a wonderful little treat for those obnoxious, goody-two shoes that should never bear children. Something he could put to good use in the future. And if anyone could find such a beautiful cruel substance for sale, it was his father, Lucius Malfoy. The one-man who-
Oh shit.
*****
A low and hollow grunt forced her eyelids to burst open, though she was filled with far too much fear to move. She lay there perfectly still as the hooves crumbled the leaves underfoot and erupted Ginny's ears with the crushing of her hope. Here was the forest demon to take her into the endless dark. To bring her into the forest of forgotten nightmares and empty chasms. Her body was immobile as her eyes searched for her predator that was now encircling her.
She could hear the animal sniff the air and Ginny's attention was immediately brought to her left calf where the skin had torn open into a gash, a reminder of all that she had been dragged through. This was her demon's informant, the smell of opened and ready flesh to be feasted on.
The idea of being eaten alive brought Ginny back to her senses and she tried desperately to move. To somehow find an escape for at least a little while until the beast would become exhausted and annoyed, and then give up the chase. But Ginny's bones weighed down on her and pressed her further and further into the forest floor. Her eyes wild with fear, she began searching for any last stray of light, something that would clue her in on a way out until they locked with the demon hovering above her.
Hollow and empty black eyes were transfixed on hers, as though attempting to put Ginny in some sort trance before eating away at her. Heavy breath spread over Ginny's skin like a hot iron and made her scuttle backwards. Beaten and broken, she could no more move but an inch away and all it did was give Ginny a better view of her attacker.
****
Damn.
Where was Potter?
Draco clutched his broom in his left hand as he searched for any sign of the boy. Nothing. And this was supposed to be Potter's shinning moment.
Where was the bloody bastard?
Draco was furious now. The Weasley girl down below was about to be eaten alive by a drooling Chichevache and her rescuer was nowhere to be found. He was late and damn it, Draco was not about to take his place.
He looked down again and saw that the creature was advancing on the girl. Certainly the smell of fresh opened flesh carried the creature to her. And the practically dried up appearance of the beast revealed its painful hunger for such a rich feast. Now it was just buying time by stalking her for a bit.
This was defiantly not how it was supposed to go. Potter was supposed to be bursting through the clouds above on his broom, then he would sweep down to fight off the demon attacking his best friend's little sister. Followed by being taken away by Death Eaters. He was the hero. Draco was the villain. Leave it to Potter to be an unreliable git in the most irreprehensible of times. Of course he was at home whimpering away and now Draco was left to do his dirty work.
Damn.
*****
As if possible, the gaze of the predator grew and attempted enveloping her, causing Ginny to search frantically for her voice. She didn't care if it brought bloodthirsty vampires out towards her, anything but this beast would suit her just fine. But her voice was nowhere to be found, and the demon was getting closer, moving with a slow determined step. Knowing that it's prey would not be able to escape.
Shutting her eyes as tight as possible, blocking out the haunting, hungry trance the beast had on her. She could feel that it was getting closer, the slow and steady steps of skin and bone inching towards her. It was the end, there was nothing left to it, and if she could drive herself to unconsciousness now she could numb herself from the teeth that were now bare and waiting to sink into her.
Just then she heard a new rustling in the trees, something from high above. A flash of silver. Something flying in the night air just through her cloud of sight. A familiar shadow that she could not place in her mind. It had captured not only her attention but the demon's as well, leaving Ginny an open opportunity to run for it. Still, her body was plastered to the ground and her gaze was far too mesmerized with the curiosity in whatever was flying through the abandoned forest trees. But it was gone in a flash as a much heavier footstep clamped down on the leaves.
A deafening and unmistakable whine erupted the air and caused Ginny's heart to jump in her now useless throat. Her head turned ever so painfully to the other side and opened a view of her demon scampering away, back into the entanglement of branch and thorn. Her gaze rested gratefully on the new figure sweeping down to steal her away. Overcome with relief, Ginny let her eyelids fall as she was carried out of Tom's wilderness chamber that he had spat her into, just as before.