The Demons Hidden Within
Chapter 4: Dreamless Hopes
~*~*~
Jay brought me out of my ceaseless torment. Cold water drenching my face pulled me back to the here and now. Painfully real, so painfully alive. I had fallen asleep on the couch earlier, the seemingly random information from Dumbledore splayed before me. Once crisp - now crinkled and crushed . . . and slightly damp.
I peeled a parchment off of my arm and laid it next to the others, trying to smooth it out. Random, yes, but not without its purpose. It listed the past 30 years of Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, half of which were dead or incapacitated. Not a very pleasant thought. No wonder the general public thought of the position as cursed.
"James Potter: 80-81 (deceased)" was listed near the bottom. It had caught my eye before I had drifted off to the nearest thing I could call sleep. He, like those after, had managed only one year. The name before him, one "Joan Francis," had taught for six. The supposed curse began with my father.
"You alright?" I heard Jay from behind me, wise to put distance between us after that type of awakening.
The sound of his voice breaking into my lulling caused me to jump and interrupt any cutting remark I could give him.
"Ya . . . it's just . . . I don't know . . . maybe not . . ." I trailed off, rambling. Damn him for washing away my composure. It didn't matter that I had none to begin with, I needed to curse something mentally.
He suppressed a laugh. I would have glared, but he wasn't in my direct line of vision. A towel landed next to me. Eh, at least he thought in advance.
"Just stop the 'I am Oedipus' shit, it's getting on my nerves. And I, unlike you, need to get up tomorrow."
He moved to walk away with a wide berth around me, but his steps faltered as his eye caught something, apparently glowing of itself, on the end table. This time, he didn't make any effort to suppress his inane laugh as he picked up the vial and tossed it on top of the towel.
"Well . . . any help you can get, right?"
I stared at the vial as he retreated to his never-failingly-pleasant dreams, mesmerized by its swirling blue; the contents like a foreboding sky before a storm. Some internal light cast a soporific glow upon my hand, calling to my restlessness.
I knew the consequences of drinking this elixir. In the morning I would send my acceptance to face my past. That is the price of sleep: to return to the land I had forsaken. I would be forced to fall back into the inevitable cycles.
Once I took this night's potion, I would only need more. After given this type of release from its torment my body would override my emotions and call endlessly for this until satisfied. I would need to return to the wizarding world . . .
With those resigning thoughts, I tilted my head back and drank. Snape would be satisfied to know that he had brewed me a poison: one to my ever- pressing illusions of hiding from fate, of free will.
As the vial slipped from my calmed fingers, I surrendered willingly to a state of consciousness I had all but forgotten.
*~*~*
I talked with Janis the next morning. Better to tell her than Jay. She was already involved with the letter that had started this whole business. At least, that was how I tried to reason it to myself. In all reality, I woke up from beautiful nothingness to see her typing away on her laptop in the chair next to me. She was there and I desperately needed to talk. It could have been anyone.
No doubt Jay had once again informed her of my sleeping habits. Perhaps he even feared for them. He wouldn't go so far as to say much, but Janis read him well and confronted me so much more easily. That's really all that made these friendships work.
I watched her for a time before I would alerted her sensors by moving. Her face screwed up in concentration as she searched for the perfect word for her recent endeavor. She began to type, stopped, held down "delete" for a time, and started typing again - a cycle that eventually lead to something of content.
I had thought she was joking when she told me her chosen profession was freelance writing. But she had been completely serious and managed to live rather well for being self-employed.
As I laid there, mesmerized by her intensity, my mind drifted without bounds to Luna Lovegood and the unpaid articles of the Quibbler. Writers so desperate as to write for nothing. Janis's career was definitely beyond those points of obscurity. I'm sure her heart, though, still goes out to those with the same dream, having followed the same path.
I closed my eyes as a yawn escaped my mouth. Simultaneously stretching the length of my body, losing my balance and falling gracelessly onto the floor. The fates hated me.
"Nice that you've returned to the land of the living."
"Damn your morningness." Shit. I hadn't meant to voice that curse aloud.
"Morning's long gone. But if I ever to possess 'morningness' in the future, please feel free to slap me back to reality."
It took a while for this to register. Looking at my watched confirmed her statement. Three o'clock was long past morning. Nonetheless, it still didn't help the case for her cheerfulness in my sleep-drowsed mind.
"Seems Harry Potter has methods of sleeping."
"Among other things," I replied bitterly, refusing to pick myself off the floor.
I was still trying to grasp around the fact that for the first time in too long to remember I actually felt well rested.
I yawned again - a yawn of waking - and, bloody hell, it felt satisfying. Though I'd known it last night, it finally hit me that Dumbledore had won.
Janis hit a final key before closing her computer, and fixing me with her gaze. She attempted to raise an eyebrow, but failed miserably in the attempt. Needless, I answered the unasked questions with the after-effects of Dreamless Sleep making me ramble and say more than intended. I didn't fight them.
"Harry Potter was part of a different world. A world within this one. Separated, yet all too connected. This society I tried to leave behind with the name that identified me there. But clearly I only fooled myself. There are benefits, yes, sleep being one of those. Yet, in the end, it wasn't worth the bigotry . . . the whole mentality of the place. . . ."
I knew I was rambling, knew she wouldn't understand most of this. But she would get an outline. She deserved that much. I couldn't tell her about magic, but I could outline a group of people who isolate themselves from her known society.
"I left that world and gave up on it. Most assumed me dead--others knew better. Too much grief, too many endless cycles. I couldn't recognize that there were people there who still cared for me. I made myself Oedipus Lee here, hoping to leave behind my past."
I sighed and lapsed into silence. It took so much more effort to finally voice these thoughts I held inside for so long. Janis remained silent, eyes filled with a sadness for something she didn't even fully understand. She was fighting to say something, anything, but couldn't sort her thoughts. Finally she settled on the most obvious question.
"So, Harry Potter is going to return?" She just had to bring up the identity, also.
I tried to avoid the underlying question. "I have to set some things right . . . or at least try. I've run for far too long. I don't know what will come of this: Nothing good, I fear, and I don't dare to hope for anything else."
"You know what I meant." Impossible to play innocent, utterly impossible.
"Harry Potter is dead," I said simply.
"Only to some, you said it yourself. If you're going to return to 'your' world, why keep up this façade?" Damn logic.
I looked away, not wanting to answer that 'Harry Potter' had been just as much so. I had no true identity when taken away from the names I hid behind.
"If you're going to enter cold water, would you rather draw it out painfully slow or just jump in and take all the shock at once?"
I still didn't answer.
She elaborated, "If you return as Oedipus Lee, eventually you'll be connected with you past." Her eyes traveled to my scar. She didn't know how correct she was in believing it to be unique.
"I can't be the person who I was," I muttered, almost to myself.
"Then don't. It's just a name, not your ultimate definition. Don't conform to those expectations that come along with it, whatever they may be. As Oedipus, you would also be putting on an act--and I somehow don't think you'd want that either."
Forsaken logic. Any response I had against it was lost as a recognizable tap came from the window.
Later in the day, an owl arrived at Hogwarts carrying the lost signature of my past self.
~*~*~*~
A/N: Bah on the length but I wanted to update this as it may be a while until my next. Just realized that there's less than a month before school starts and there's a lot of crap I need to do - mainly finding out what colleges I'm going to apply to, and doing all that stuff I promised myself I would before I'm forced into my senior year (Kennywood, forking yards, actually having a bit of a social life . . .). Also, a warning that when the inevitable end of summer comes, I may completely disappear for large quantities of time as I'm taking 4 AP classes and will have a study hall only with a bit of luck. ::shudders:: Eh, but I'm sure you don't need to know all that . . . :-)
Eternal thanks and supplies of Frooties to all the reviewers.
Special thanks to Em, who (I don't think) even knows about this fic.
Chapter 4: Dreamless Hopes
~*~*~
Jay brought me out of my ceaseless torment. Cold water drenching my face pulled me back to the here and now. Painfully real, so painfully alive. I had fallen asleep on the couch earlier, the seemingly random information from Dumbledore splayed before me. Once crisp - now crinkled and crushed . . . and slightly damp.
I peeled a parchment off of my arm and laid it next to the others, trying to smooth it out. Random, yes, but not without its purpose. It listed the past 30 years of Defense Against the Dark Arts teachers, half of which were dead or incapacitated. Not a very pleasant thought. No wonder the general public thought of the position as cursed.
"James Potter: 80-81 (deceased)" was listed near the bottom. It had caught my eye before I had drifted off to the nearest thing I could call sleep. He, like those after, had managed only one year. The name before him, one "Joan Francis," had taught for six. The supposed curse began with my father.
"You alright?" I heard Jay from behind me, wise to put distance between us after that type of awakening.
The sound of his voice breaking into my lulling caused me to jump and interrupt any cutting remark I could give him.
"Ya . . . it's just . . . I don't know . . . maybe not . . ." I trailed off, rambling. Damn him for washing away my composure. It didn't matter that I had none to begin with, I needed to curse something mentally.
He suppressed a laugh. I would have glared, but he wasn't in my direct line of vision. A towel landed next to me. Eh, at least he thought in advance.
"Just stop the 'I am Oedipus' shit, it's getting on my nerves. And I, unlike you, need to get up tomorrow."
He moved to walk away with a wide berth around me, but his steps faltered as his eye caught something, apparently glowing of itself, on the end table. This time, he didn't make any effort to suppress his inane laugh as he picked up the vial and tossed it on top of the towel.
"Well . . . any help you can get, right?"
I stared at the vial as he retreated to his never-failingly-pleasant dreams, mesmerized by its swirling blue; the contents like a foreboding sky before a storm. Some internal light cast a soporific glow upon my hand, calling to my restlessness.
I knew the consequences of drinking this elixir. In the morning I would send my acceptance to face my past. That is the price of sleep: to return to the land I had forsaken. I would be forced to fall back into the inevitable cycles.
Once I took this night's potion, I would only need more. After given this type of release from its torment my body would override my emotions and call endlessly for this until satisfied. I would need to return to the wizarding world . . .
With those resigning thoughts, I tilted my head back and drank. Snape would be satisfied to know that he had brewed me a poison: one to my ever- pressing illusions of hiding from fate, of free will.
As the vial slipped from my calmed fingers, I surrendered willingly to a state of consciousness I had all but forgotten.
*~*~*
I talked with Janis the next morning. Better to tell her than Jay. She was already involved with the letter that had started this whole business. At least, that was how I tried to reason it to myself. In all reality, I woke up from beautiful nothingness to see her typing away on her laptop in the chair next to me. She was there and I desperately needed to talk. It could have been anyone.
No doubt Jay had once again informed her of my sleeping habits. Perhaps he even feared for them. He wouldn't go so far as to say much, but Janis read him well and confronted me so much more easily. That's really all that made these friendships work.
I watched her for a time before I would alerted her sensors by moving. Her face screwed up in concentration as she searched for the perfect word for her recent endeavor. She began to type, stopped, held down "delete" for a time, and started typing again - a cycle that eventually lead to something of content.
I had thought she was joking when she told me her chosen profession was freelance writing. But she had been completely serious and managed to live rather well for being self-employed.
As I laid there, mesmerized by her intensity, my mind drifted without bounds to Luna Lovegood and the unpaid articles of the Quibbler. Writers so desperate as to write for nothing. Janis's career was definitely beyond those points of obscurity. I'm sure her heart, though, still goes out to those with the same dream, having followed the same path.
I closed my eyes as a yawn escaped my mouth. Simultaneously stretching the length of my body, losing my balance and falling gracelessly onto the floor. The fates hated me.
"Nice that you've returned to the land of the living."
"Damn your morningness." Shit. I hadn't meant to voice that curse aloud.
"Morning's long gone. But if I ever to possess 'morningness' in the future, please feel free to slap me back to reality."
It took a while for this to register. Looking at my watched confirmed her statement. Three o'clock was long past morning. Nonetheless, it still didn't help the case for her cheerfulness in my sleep-drowsed mind.
"Seems Harry Potter has methods of sleeping."
"Among other things," I replied bitterly, refusing to pick myself off the floor.
I was still trying to grasp around the fact that for the first time in too long to remember I actually felt well rested.
I yawned again - a yawn of waking - and, bloody hell, it felt satisfying. Though I'd known it last night, it finally hit me that Dumbledore had won.
Janis hit a final key before closing her computer, and fixing me with her gaze. She attempted to raise an eyebrow, but failed miserably in the attempt. Needless, I answered the unasked questions with the after-effects of Dreamless Sleep making me ramble and say more than intended. I didn't fight them.
"Harry Potter was part of a different world. A world within this one. Separated, yet all too connected. This society I tried to leave behind with the name that identified me there. But clearly I only fooled myself. There are benefits, yes, sleep being one of those. Yet, in the end, it wasn't worth the bigotry . . . the whole mentality of the place. . . ."
I knew I was rambling, knew she wouldn't understand most of this. But she would get an outline. She deserved that much. I couldn't tell her about magic, but I could outline a group of people who isolate themselves from her known society.
"I left that world and gave up on it. Most assumed me dead--others knew better. Too much grief, too many endless cycles. I couldn't recognize that there were people there who still cared for me. I made myself Oedipus Lee here, hoping to leave behind my past."
I sighed and lapsed into silence. It took so much more effort to finally voice these thoughts I held inside for so long. Janis remained silent, eyes filled with a sadness for something she didn't even fully understand. She was fighting to say something, anything, but couldn't sort her thoughts. Finally she settled on the most obvious question.
"So, Harry Potter is going to return?" She just had to bring up the identity, also.
I tried to avoid the underlying question. "I have to set some things right . . . or at least try. I've run for far too long. I don't know what will come of this: Nothing good, I fear, and I don't dare to hope for anything else."
"You know what I meant." Impossible to play innocent, utterly impossible.
"Harry Potter is dead," I said simply.
"Only to some, you said it yourself. If you're going to return to 'your' world, why keep up this façade?" Damn logic.
I looked away, not wanting to answer that 'Harry Potter' had been just as much so. I had no true identity when taken away from the names I hid behind.
"If you're going to enter cold water, would you rather draw it out painfully slow or just jump in and take all the shock at once?"
I still didn't answer.
She elaborated, "If you return as Oedipus Lee, eventually you'll be connected with you past." Her eyes traveled to my scar. She didn't know how correct she was in believing it to be unique.
"I can't be the person who I was," I muttered, almost to myself.
"Then don't. It's just a name, not your ultimate definition. Don't conform to those expectations that come along with it, whatever they may be. As Oedipus, you would also be putting on an act--and I somehow don't think you'd want that either."
Forsaken logic. Any response I had against it was lost as a recognizable tap came from the window.
Later in the day, an owl arrived at Hogwarts carrying the lost signature of my past self.
~*~*~*~
A/N: Bah on the length but I wanted to update this as it may be a while until my next. Just realized that there's less than a month before school starts and there's a lot of crap I need to do - mainly finding out what colleges I'm going to apply to, and doing all that stuff I promised myself I would before I'm forced into my senior year (Kennywood, forking yards, actually having a bit of a social life . . .). Also, a warning that when the inevitable end of summer comes, I may completely disappear for large quantities of time as I'm taking 4 AP classes and will have a study hall only with a bit of luck. ::shudders:: Eh, but I'm sure you don't need to know all that . . . :-)
Eternal thanks and supplies of Frooties to all the reviewers.
Special thanks to Em, who (I don't think) even knows about this fic.