Disclaimer: As always I own nothing except Pandora Romulus and the Plot, the rest are temporarily borrowed from J.K. Rowling and I promise that I will put them back relatively unharmed and without making any money.

Chapter 11: Dreamscape

Harry was walking through the castle. He was searching for something, but he didn't know what. Everything was silent. Suddenly the world darkened, like a shadow had blackened the sun. Harry wandered blindly.

A door opened and Harry looked inside. A single candle lit the room; it's light bouncing off the walls. Fluffy was on his back, tongues hanging out. Hagrid was patting Fluffy's stomach and the dog was drooling contentedly.

Hagrid looked up at the door. 'What are yer doin 'ere 'Arry? Yer don't belong 'ere.'

'Sorry.' Harry shut the door and was again enveloped in darkness. He kept walking.

A light started, but it was only cast from the stars and the distant moon, creating strange shadows. Then noise started, shoes making a gentle 'flwop' noise, like slippers on a tiled floor. Harry followed the noise, but only found himself walking in a large circle, seemingly covering that level of the castle. He looked down at his shoes.

'Yeah, it's us. Don't understand shoelex do ya? You missed the next door.'

Harry frowned at his shoes, sat down took them off and looked at them. 'If I don't understand shoelex, how come I understand you?'

'Because we aren't talking shoelex, we are talking Parseltongue.'

'Parseltongue? How can you talk Parseltongue?' Harry was annoyed.

'Well,' said one impatiently. 'We can talk Parseltongue because we are made of snakeskin.'

'Oh.' It was a shape, rather than a noise

'Put us back on and we'll take you to the next door.'

Harry obeyed and his shoes took him to a richly ornate Gothic door. He reluctantly pushed it open. Lucius Malfoy was standing in what appeared to be a beautiful study, a multitude of leather bound books of rich reds and green decorated the bookshelves. Lucius appeared to be talking to his arm.

'I know Master. I know. But Master we do not know what she knows. She may be of some use to us. I'm Sorry Master. Yes I will see to it that it is done.'

Harry realised Lucius couldn't see him, because Lucius had looked up and stared straight through him. Lucius covered his arms with his black robes and walked over to a chest Harry hadn't noticed. It had a carving on it. A muggle one as it didn't move. Harry recognised it but couldn't think of its name. Planks of wood were everywhere; some were together forming a raft. Others were free but floating with the motion of the raft. Bodies were strewn all over the wood, seemingly neither alive nor dead. A single sail floated lazily and two scantily clad men were holding up rags in what appeared to be a desperate attempt to either gain the attention of an unseen rescuer or as a final farewell to the mortal coil. The water appeared to be moving and swirling on this carving, and bodies decorated the dark peaks in the background. Harry couldn't remember there being bodies in the water of the painting that he had seen.

Lucius fiddled with the chest, fighting with a lock and murmuring an incantation. It croaked in protest and then opened. All Harry could see was blackness. A tiny glint of light bounced off something shiny. Slowly Lucius pulled out what would have been a beautiful Spanish sword from the 13th Century if it weren't for the hand holding it. Lucius held it both hands as if to give it to someone as an admirable gift. The hand closest to the blade moved and formed a soft edged pool that Lucius allowed to drop on the wood polished floor. It bounced gently. Harry looked down at it, noticing it formed the shape of the ace of spades.

Lucius absently wiped his hand on his robes. 'Yes, you will do. You are quite precious aren't you? Perfect for getting rid of that nuisance.'

The chest slammed shut and Harry remembered the name of the artwork. He frowned.

Lucius sheathed the sword and left the room.

Harry followed his cue and left via the same ornate Gothic door.

The hallway was now alight with an eerie apricot glow. Harry looked for another door but found none. Harry realised he had started descending, something which hadn't happened before his shoes had spoken to him. A door rose out of the monotony, it was round and locked. Harry pushed it, it's weight shifted and groaned.

'Alohomora!' Harry's wand was suddenly in his hand.

The door groaned again and swung open slowly. Darkness greeted Harry with opened arms and pulled him in, locking the door behind him again. Two eyes started glowing at him, clear and a strange pale blue-green colour. Then they turned away.

'Light your wand.' A dismembered voice whispered in his ear.

'Luminous!' Harry croaked. Slowly the light grew on the end of Harry's wand; and Harry blinked as his eyes adjusted painfully slowly to the people montage revealing itself.

Harry was standing in what appeared to be a dome dungeon. His scar ached suddenly and sharply. Voldemort was standing opposite Harry on the far side of the room. He was watching Lucius. Lucius was holding up a sword, blood decorating it to the hilt. Harry looked down at the slump on the floor. It looked like Jack the Ripper had been there, but a clear face looked out at him. Cascading black hair framed a face with eyes the colour of aged glass. The eyes stared out at him in a plea which came too late.

Harry screamed.

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Authors Notes:

If this didn't appear to make a lot of sense, don't worry about it, dreams often don't. Some of it will be clarified eventually.

People Montage: It's where people are frozen in a moment, like a human representation of a painting.

Can anyone guess the name of the painting/carving? You will be told in the next chapter.

There is one very obscure reference to another book in this chapter; can anyone guess at the reference and the book?

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Review Replies:

Wow!!! And I was blown away by last chapter!!! Thanks a lot everyone.

Lauren: Thankyou very much.

Chillidog: Thanks. Sorry about the length. The chapters will get longer eventually, but there are a couple of more shorties as well.

Jagged Epiphany: Thanks as always for reviewing. I hope you enjoyed your formal and schoolies. At least part of Pandora's name has relevance, or maybe it all does. Let's just see huh?

Kram Nebuer: Thankyou! No I didn't borrow Pandora's last name from the Star Trek alien; I borrowed her last name from Roman mythology. Don't worry about other people picking on me about the length or frequency of updates, I can handle it.

Sparkle Tangerine: Thankyou for reading and reviewing. You will find out what's going on with Harry and the Pumpkin Juice soon.

VyingQuill: I chose to address you last because of the sheer length of my reply. Firstly I would like to thank you very much for the constructive criticism and for digging up my little story. Yes I do refer to popular culture a fair bit (this is why one of my earlier reviewers refers to me as akin to Joss Whedon) and will continue to do so. To counter for this the very last chapter will be an explanation of all popular culture used. I do it as a method of creativity because it's better than using extensive explanations or descriptions for relatively insignificant sections of the plot. I also figure with the wonderful world of friends and the Internet that most things could be cleared up.

Fred and George will be back, but not for a little while.

The whole 'stupefy' thing was a play on words rather than keeping to Canon. I thought it would be funny if certain spells didn't work properly on people because of word associations.

I am most definitely not discouraged by your criticising and I hope you keep it up. :-)