Disclaimer: remember - everything is J.K.Rowlings'.Unfortunately!
Chapter 1 The Dream
He moved along the flowing water, trying to keep his body dry.
Not that it mattered to him, but his master was really irritable the past days and tended to let His anger flow toward him without hesitation. The loss had caused his anger to rise to unbelievable heights and his scruples to get lost. Torture – the best friend of His, was the most often happening event in his life. He dreaded those moments and his fear made him fly.
The walls he was running along got drier and greener and the amount of the moss growing on them increased. Its tentacles bathing lazily in the filthy water, the bare vegetation and its smell made his nostrils twitch. Surprisingly, he could feel the scent of every single piece of garbage that was floating in the dirty brown liquid - a Birtie Bott All Flavour Beans package, a muddy dark-red hat and a lot of leaves... He could smell all the rubbish in the filthy sewage canal and his stomach turned upside-down with disgust.
He ran faster and faster as the dull pain in his skull got worse and he felt the familiar anger arising in him. Something was moving inside him, urging him to hurry...to satisfy his master. But he was already angry. He felt the breathtaking panic inside his chest as well, something so unfamiliar. He had to run...
It was getting late, but he couldn't move faster. The light was getting fainter but he wasn't even close to his destination. Suddenly all the weight and pain he was feeling disappeared; his legs didn't feel numb anymore, and he darted toward the water to cool them down. His Master had left his body but he couldn't see Him. He looked down at the water and saw his face...and before he could move even the slightest bit or interpret what his eyes saw, the familiar chill came down his spine, leaving him only with the hope he would survive...He could get only a brief look at the rat face in the water before it began...
"You idiot!", the icy voice called from behind him.
And then the stinging pain went through his body at a mind-spinning speed. He had known what the Cruciatus Curse was like but this time his head exploded with the pain. Thousands of knives were cutting his body into bite-sized pieces; a collision with a muggle truck would have felt better to him.
His frame was weak and he couldn't stand it. He wasn't himself. A shrill cry erupted from his throat, but was somehow reduced to a high-pitched squeal. His muscles corroded in pain and panic he had never experienced before; every single cell of his body felt enraged and yet too simple to resist.
Then it stopped as suddenly as it began. He could hear his own squeally breaths developed into heavy panting. Headache was tearing his brain apart mercilessly; his vision was blurry and he momentarily thought of his glasses...But then again, the image of a rat face in the water came back to him and his guts turned.
He swirled around in the air against his will and then fell. An unseen force was obsessing him in his mind and there was nothing he could do. He felt the urge to run again, to scratch and squeal, to get away. He slowly lifted his head from the brown dirty canal floor to look at the creature that had just escaped his body. His eyes moved slowly from the dark shoes up along the pitch-black robes to land on the face...
An ear-splitting scream left his throat at the sight of it - clenched teeth under needle-thin lips forming a repelling twisted smile, high and as if bruised cheekbones, and red, snakelike, savagely-piercing eyes...
Harry woke up with a start, ice-cold sweat streaming down his face, neck and back. He felt terribly exposed only in his pajamas. Goose bumps arose in his skin and he shivered. His body was still hurting from the curse and he made an attempt to get up, but then an unbearable wave of sleepiness hit him, swept over his entire body, and he was asleep again before he hit the pillow.
He was in the tunnel again, but this time what he saw in front of him wasn't Voldemort. He watched as the rat transformed before his very eyes into...
"Wormtail! You wretched remain of a Death Eater! How can you always mess stuff up like this?! Why don't you just use the little brain that you have left even only to watch where you are going! Is this the right tunnel? Is it? Speak you stupid animal!"
His voice was so cold that it sent obvious chills and shivers over Pettigrew's entire body. His fists were clenched, white anger blinding him for a moment, and his frame was torn apart by his frustration and irritation, when suddenly...
"Crucio!"
He turned on his heal to face the person whom he least expected, but was definitely pleased to see. Pure surprise mixed with satisfaction was emitted from his frame.
"Ah, Bella!" he said as he observed the smooth and yet twisted expression on the woman's face. "Nice surprise to see you down here." He said in a softer voice and turned to look at the man whose muscles were still painfully contracting from the curse Lestrange had sent to him and whose cries filled the air, cutting its stench.
She lowered her wand and the ear-splitting yells ceased. She tossed her heavy hair back, the wry smile still blossoming on her lips.
"Couldn't talk at that noise, now could I?" She advanced toward him, beaming, taking tiny but confident steps. She walked determinedly as if to hug him but stopped right in front of him, and, her smile widening, fell to her knees to kiss his robes. He lowered himself too and lifted her to her feet.
"Don't bother, pet, nothing to do that for. It's fake." A smile appeared on his bone-white lips.
"No, my lord, it's not and you know that." She bowed again, some hurt expression on her face.
"Okay then, there's no one around to do that for. Does this sound more pleasing?"
The words sent colour to her pale cheeks and to her lips.
"Now, pet, what is it that you are doing here? Weren't you on a hunt?" he said with that arrogant smirk still on his lips.
"Yes, my lord, but you were really late, and I thought...I..." she stammered and tried to avoid his eyes.
However, the wry smile appeared on his lips again as he read her expression. "I see. Well, I should have reached the cross a long time ago if this git weren't as slow and stupid as he is..."
His anger arose again, but he continued, swallowing it and quickly getting control over his tone. "So I assume you haven't found her yet?" He frowned and grimaced with dissatisfaction as her face got pinched and her eyes were sent down to look at her toes. He lifted her chin, locked eyes with her and exchanged the information they both needed. Then nodded:
"Go and meet me at the cross at midnight. Tell the others to close the entrance and check the other tunnels before going there too. Now."
Bellatrix nodded, bowed and twirled around.
"No, wait. What about the boy? You know where he lives by now, right?"
"Yes, master, but I still can't get the connection...why th-"
"Did I ask you to look for connection!? I know what I want and it's that he comes and finds it!!!" He yelled on top of his lungs, sparkles streaming out of his narrowed eyes.
"But...I thou-"Lestrange stuttered again.
"Enough! Using your...privileges, are you? Crucio!"
Her eyes widened as the curse hit her and sent her to the floor. He lifted it almost immediately and put her on her feet.
"Do you want to argue more with me, pet?" He hissed in her ear while pulling her head back by the hair.
"No, Master." She whispered closing her eyes.
"Very well. Now go and find what I asked you for."
Speechless, she bowed again and then disapparated.
"And now I'll have a chat with you" he turned toward Wormtail. "You said you knew where it was."
"Yes...yes...I did master, but it was dark at that time...and...and it's hard the second time. They...they must know a-about it too, S-She has to know...I thought...noooooo!"
The ear-splitting screams cut the air once again, as he lifted the bony fingers holding the wand.
"Do that again, and this feeling shall be constant!" he hissed in the fat man's ear, then lifted the curse and disapparated, leaving the other one lying in the filthy water and gasping for breath once again.
Harry woke with a start for the second time that night, frantically scanning the room he was in. His hands were shaking and his muscles protested with pain as he tried to sit up in his bed. The scar was burning and driving him crazy more and more each second terribly on his forehead and he was seriously considering whether or not to smack his head in the nightstand to stop it. Then realization hit him and he quickly got out of bed. Occlumency is the worst thing ever he thought as he tried to remember every single detail of the scene he saw. He knew it wasn't just a dream and the thought made him feel sick. This was how Sirius died. The bloody psycho entered my mind and made me see him torturing him... The bastard coaxed him into the Ministry Of Magic to save his godfather...His Godfather. He had nobody left except the bloody Dursleys. Harry paced around the room, taking short breaths, trying to decide what to do. This was definitely not good and he just knew it. But then again, in the last dream, Harry's relatives had been concerned and now it was different. He had really seen Voldemort and Bellatrix. Bellatrix. Even the thought of her turned his stomach upside-down and he clenched his teeth almost breaking them in the effort not to yell with pain and hatred. That bitch! His head was spinning and sweat drops covered his temples, forehead and neck. All the summer he had had nightmares, all the same, over and over again, and every morning he had woken with tears in his eyes. Sirius. Harry couldn't erase the memory of his last moments with his last relative. He just couldn't stop seeing him again and again, falling through the veil. His cousin killed him and she definitely didn't regret it. Something about that woman killed Harry from the inside, and now he knew what. She was with Voldemort, she was his pet and she did it all for him. She never had personal grudge with her cousin; the only reason was He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. He led her, and he was the one encouraging her. That's why Harry hated her more than ever now. He saw her real self in that dream, and that made Harry feel much calmer. Now he could kill her along with Voldemort without unnecessary struggle and pain; without remembering Sirius.Hecouldn't explain it, but it made perfect sense to him. As did the fact that he had to kill Voldemort once he was ready.
The pain started disappearing and Harry relaxed his body against the huge wardrobe, trying to think sober. He had just broken into Voldemort's mind and seen everything he did. But he couldn't understand even a single thing. What was he doing in a tunnel that suspiciously looked like the sewage, and what was he looking for? One question after another popped up in his head but the only thing he could do was stare at the ceiling and guess. Voldemort was looking for someone, a woman as far as he remembered, and wanted to find her really badly, but had been unsuccessful. All the Death Eaters were on the hunt, but why? This one's important, eh? , Harry thought, not realizing this was the first time he was distracted from his dead godfather's last moments. He was really confused about all of the stuff he saw, but one thing was for sure-he was going to find out what was all that fussing about.
And then another uncomfortable thought echoed: what if this was really important...shouldn't he tell someone about it? Someone. His heart sunk deeper - who? Dumbledore was definitely not the image of a person to confide in, but who else has been there for him for all those years? Sirius, but he was away...gone...Harry felt tears well up in his eyes again and furiously brushed them away with his sleeve. It's not the time to get vegetably soft and tearful, it's just not!
He was pacing around the room again, oblivious to the fact that he was making elephant-ish noises. He was in thought again. Ron and Hermione were his best friends, but he wasn't sure he was ready to talk with them. He slapped his hand on his forehead, ready to swear at himself. Who else was there for him if not them? Who had patiently accepted every yell and outburst of Harry's more than a few times during the last year? Harry almost at the thought of Ron's expression when he told him about the dream... and of Hermione's face and stammering at the thought of a new trouble...ah, he thought, I have nothing but them now. He was really surprised how the stupid dream had affected him. Two nights ago he would have yelled and screamed and crashed everything around him if somebody reminded him of Sirius, Lestrange, Voldemort or Dumbledore, but now... he needed them; all of them. They were his live, and he was ready to face them.
Strangely cheerful, even after the pain in the dream, Harry looked around the room to see what to do first but the only thing inside his head were flies dead since the beginning of the summer.
He stared at Dudley's six-year-old desk, actually never used, the wardrobe, the crooked middle of his bed that had had very hard times managing Dudley and his weight; his eyes swept over the brownish bedside table covered with dust and from the foggy lamp to the drawers of the chest behind the door. He went and sat on it, rubbing his forehead. Something was bothering him but he couldn't tell what exactly was wrong. Something in that dream was definitely weird. He got off the chest and paced a few more laps in the room. I was Voldemort, and Pettigrew was there too. He had messed up the task, and I tortured him...but...there's something else. Someone else. It felt like before the dream... Harry grabbed his head in order to stop the inside spinning. And then finally his brain woke up. There was another dream where I wasn't Him. His face went white as the sudden realization drained the blood out of it. Pettigrew.
He started toward his bed to get some parchment and a quill from the mobile board under it when a sudden and really loud knock on the window sent him a few feet in the air. Hurrying, as careless not to wake the Dursleys as possible, he opened it and let his snow-white owl in.
Hedwig, recently a great bit scared from Harry by his outbursts, eyed him warily as she made a circle in the room. Two days ago, if she made even the slightest sound, he would have gone mad and started yelling at her, but now something was different. The ignorant expression on his face was gone and his eyes were alive.
Harry sighed and extended his arm to her. After all, he thought, she's the only one in this house that doesn't jump a foot in the air every time she sees me.
Hedwig let a relieved squeal, flew to him and picked him on the ear with affection. She's better that a person, he thought loudly as he headed for the bed again, and will never correct or interrogate me.
Sharp pain in the shoulder told him something was wrong. Hedwig wasn't letting go of him, even to give him the crumpled little piece of parchment tied to her leg. She looked weird as well as Harry noticed with a closer look at her. Her feathers were in all directions and she had a terrified expression on her white face.
"Hedwig, did someone...attack you?"
She dug her talons deeper in Harry's shoulder to confirm his worst fear. He put her down, ran to the window and looked up and down the dark Privet Drive as if expecting to see dark robes turning the corner.
His fear sank into his stomach causing it grumble as though in pain. They attacked his owl...the dream was so true that it made Harry's head ache. They had come to make him pay.
