Author's Notes: Ok, didn't mean to make everyone (wow, I'm making that sound like people other than my friends actually read it....) wait so long. I have a whole list of excuses I'm sure you don't want to hear anyway so for once I will shut my trap. Happy? Ok, about the fic, this is chappie three. Obviously. I'm sure when I started typing this I had an idea of what I wanted to say. By the time I get to the bottom? No guarantees. So, on with EVERYBODY'S favorite, the disclaimer.

Disclaimer: Has hell frozen over yet? Then I ain't the owner of Harry Potter and all related places, ideas, and characters. Otherwise Sirius would not have to go on vacation with Elvis just so people who read the books would think he was dead. Which he is not.

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The Hours of Darkness Chapter Three: Explanations

By Sputnik2006

When Harry's feet finally touched ground again he noticed two things. First of all he felt like he was going to throw up. Apparently it wasn't a good idea to use a portkey to travel more than once. But then again he hadn't felt like that when he first used one. He shrugged mentally. 'Must be all the strangeness from tonight catching up to me."

Second he realized, rather belatedly, that he was not at Grimmauld Place like he had thought he would be. Wherever he was it seemed nice.

The room was fine enough for any mansion. Beautifully engraved oak paneling lined the walls, depicting all sorts of wizarding scenes. One showed a man reading with a girl that looked a little like Ginny. In another a rather confused looking woman (who, Harry realized with a laugh, looked a little like Lockhart, stupid face and all) was attempting to pet a dragon. The floor was a dark blue carpet that his feet sunk into. A huge chandelier, candles flickering in a breeze only they could feel, lit the large space. By the great fireplace were a couple of chairs and a table. Otherwise the room seemed bare of adornment.

That was all he had time to take in before he found himself bowled over by a very hard tea tray being pushed by an extremely nervous house elf. "OH! I's sorry, sir! I is not meaning to hurt you, sir! You are fine? Here, sir, sit here!" All this said in a few seconds flat. Harry found himself being pushed toward the nearest armchair, rather uncomfortably considering how short the house elf was. It seemed to only be able to reach his knees; Harry tried not to laugh. Very few people knew how ticklish he was behind his knees.

"I see Greebo is making you feel right at home." Harry hadn't even realized Remus was there. The aforementioned house elf bowed low before quickly exiting the room. "She's not the most competent house elf I've ever met but she tries."

He sat down in the chair next to Harry, on his left. Harry watched him idly stir his tea before letting his calm mask slip a little. It was obvious he was troubled about the Death Eater that had so suddenly appeared in the Dursley residence.

An uncomfortable silence fell upon the two. Fidgeting, Harry's eyes wandered around the room, taking in the rest of the wall carvings. Most were beautiful, especially one of a phoenix being reborn, already covered in it's glorious feathers. However unrealistic the picture was (Fawkes certainly hadn't looked that nice the times Harry had seen him die and come back to life) it was still a wonder to behold; he wasn't sure but he thought it looked like it was decorated with real rubies scattered among it's plumage.

There was one though that stuck out the most. It seemed different from the rest. Almost hidden in the corner it seemed a little darker than the rest, in theme and color itself. From where he was sitting he couldn't quite see what it was in full detail but from what he could see....

An arch, hideously plain, a veil, ripped and so realistic it seemed to move on the wood. 'The grain of the wood it was carved into gave it a waving quality', Harry told himself. That is all.

It was strange though. It seemed like something was coming from out of the arch. Two somethings. One of light and one of choking dark.

'What is this all about?' Harry thought. A sickening feeling in his stomach confirmed one thing though: it was definitely the same place he had 'visited' earlier that night. Sirius' death place.

'He is not dead!' he forced himself to repeat to himself. He knew it was wrong. Dumbledore said he was gone. It did no one any good to hold onto false hopes.

But wouldn't they rather false hopes instead of pure hatred for the one who had killed him? Even in his still grieving mind he knew that was stupid. They wouldn't want him to hold onto either. He only wished he knew who the 'they' his mind created actually were.

'Harry?"

Harry pulled his eyes away from the woodcarving in the corner, suddenly, for some reason, guilty. Dumbledore was standing over him, blue eyes curiously following Harry's gaze and dismissing it. For a moment the older man's eyes held Harry's. He could practically read the message 'That is for later' as if it were in neon. Then Dumbledore turned away and sat in the last armchair.

"I am sure you already got Remus' letter from earlier?" He paused long enough for Harry to nod and wonder, grimly, how much of the truth he would actually be told. "We still have some question as to the exact identity of the entity that tried to get into your house tonight but we do have some clues. The wards were designed to first block all Apparition within a radius of 100 yards. That alarm did not go off so the creature did not Apparate. The second task would be to get past the more specific, more numerous wards to keep out anyone with the Dark Mark, magical creatures, or Dementors."

"Dementors even? How do you even get wards to do that anyway?"

"That really isn't important but the wards set off alarms here, where I can hear them, and also serve to repel any unwanted guests. As I was saying," he settled back in his chair before continuing. "None of those were triggered at all, which can only mean one thing. Whatever we are dealing with is not entirely of this world or state of existence."

Harry took a moment to let that sink in.

It didn't work.

He sat there with a blank look on his face for a while before Dumbledore smiled slightly and explained. "There are several states of existence. Life of course, being the most obvious, is what the wards were set for. There is also Inanimate, such as rocks and air, things that never had a life of there own but can support life anyway. Death is second only to Life of course. All life must eventually be balanced by a death. The least common of the four is Spirit. Spirit would be like the ghosts you have seen at Hogwarts, or the Grim, as some people think. Whatever broke the wards was of Spirit. That still leaves a very broad range of enemies you might have but there is one thing we do know. Because of the attack of the Death Eater it can safely be said that Voldemort is the one behind the intruder." He sipped his tea for a minute before continuing.

"Which leads me to my next point. Voldemort himself cannot reach you but his followers can. His knowledge of dark magic could come up with all sorts of ghosts or dream creatures that can be easily fed by fear but not so easily killed."

His mention of dreams reminded Harry of the woman from before. "I guess we can rule out ghosts then. I had...a dream. It was strange, like the kind where I...am...Voldemort, that sort of clarity. But he was not there."

Dumbledore gave his empty tea cup to Greebo. "Describe this dream."

Harry then spent the next ten minutes trying to remember everything the woman had said, occasionally having to backtrack for a missed part or a better explanation of something. He became so involved that he jumped when Remus asked him a question. He had forgotten his former professor was there.

"Can you describe her at all?" Remus asked again, patiently but with a dark look on his face.

Straining his brain as best he could only came up with a vague description. "It was really dark, I didn't get to see that much of her. She was very skinny, unhealthily so. She didn't seem to be surprised to see me at first but then I said I was dreaming and she was amazed by that. I'm sorry, I only remember what she acted like, it was impossible to tell much else."

Remus and Dumbledore glanced at each other before Remus spoke. "You said she was a dreamwalker, right? It is very rare for a dreamwalker to be born. Simply put, it is more likely for Siamese twins to be joined at the head. Unlikely at best. Sidra Bancroft was the most recent to successfully master the gift enough to make a living off of it. She had already accepted a job at the Ministry, work in prophesies and such."

Harry blinked. "Prophecies?" He'd had his fair share of prophecies last year. Why did he have to hear this now?

"Prophetic dreams. Part of the dreamwalker deal. Very broad area, that. Anyway, the year she graduated she apparently decided it was better to go to Voldemort instead of stick with the side of good. A few days after her 18th birthday she came home to declare her support and leave. Her family tried to stop her so she killed them. Nasty deaths, I'm told. Been in Azkaban ever since."

There Dumbledore took up the conversation. "What interests me is how a dreamwalker could call someone without realizing it. It will have to be added to the many questions I have when next I talk with her. It will, of course, be necessary to at least have a new testimony from her. We cannot just trust the word of an Azkaban inmate but I believe there is something there that needs explaining. Especially what she knows about what happened last night."

Suddenly tired, Harry glanced at his watch. It was almost noon. No wonder, he had barely slept last night. Trying not to fall asleep where he sat he listened to Remus and Dumbledore's conversation for a little while.

A soft tug on the edge of his shirt startled him. Looking down he found the huge eyes of Greebo. Her hand was on the hem of his shirt, trying to tug him out of the room. "This way, Mr. Harry Potter, sir. We have a room for you if you is wanting sleep. Or if you is wanting food we can get you some."

Surprisingly his hunger had not returned yet. With a nod from Dumbledore he followed the rather twitchy house elf into a cozy room with a four- poster that reminded him of the bed he had at Hogwarts. Settling himself onto the bed he drifted quickly towards sleep. He had time only to hope that the nightmares would not come before everything went completely black.

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He knew right away that his hopes would not help.

Again. The familiar rooms and hallways of the ministry. Everything flashed by so quickly this time. One moment he was just arriving, the next he was lifting his hand to move the veil. Something was different this time.

Moving the veil proved difficult, as though it was weighed down by lead. Lifting it to find....nothing.

Harry stared. He understood now why it had seemed so strange. There was no dread, no guilt. A peace flowed through him.

'Why?' he thought. 'This makes no sense.' Had his dreams really advanced so quickly? First there was the trip THROUGH the veil, that had been odd. Now he was completely past it. Where was Sirius? He did not really wish to see him. It was the suddeness of the change that worried him.

There was another thing that bothered him then. He remembered the woodcarving on the wall of , Harry assumed, Dumbledore's house. The light and the dark, both emerged from the arch. He made a note then and there that as soon as he woke up he was going to see that up close.

Coincidences were never attracted to Harry Potter, this he knew. Whatever happened around him happened for a reason.

It was the reason that continued to elude him.

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So sorry about the poor house elf's name. I am notoriously bad at coming up with normal names (look up my neopets if you need any proof) so I just used on one the names of a petpet that I randomly chose. Aren't you proud? No, me either. And the title of the chapter? BAD, I know. It was going to be something completely different but I talked more than I meant to so I never got to explain it. So, if I get another chappie osted soon (I am going to start working on it in a little bit) it will have the more fun title. *spins around in rolly desk chair* Oks. Reviews=fun. I like. Sirius will come back if you review enough. Better yet, if you review I will make him dance across the screen for you. Ok, whatever, I won't. You can though. Just use your imagination. *rainbow* Sorry. Spongebob. *walks away whistling from the people who have no idea what she is talking about*