Chapter Two: Dreaming

"Get out of the way, Malfoy," Harry grumbled, turning to the left to head down the aisle, looking for a free compartment.

"Running away, Potter?" Malfoy sneered, while the two ever-present goons snickered.

"Walking, actually," Harry said, his green eyes sparking and his voice low and dangerous. "Some of us can even walk and talk at the same time, Draco. Perhaps if you practiced...?"

Malfoy's eyes narrowed.

"There is still time for you, Potter. Give up these stupid notions of yours..." Draco's voice had lowered, too. Harry looked at him, curiously. Malfoy had grown to look more and more like his father over the years. The long platinum hair was now tied back with the same black velvet ribbon, his forehead high and his silver eyes held something...

But Harry couldn't be concerned with Malfoy. He was still a git, and a secondary one at that. The real threat that Harry had to concern himself with was Voldemort, not inexperienced wannabe Death Eaters. There were enough fully qualified ones that wanted Harry's head; Malfoy was the least of his worries.

"Notions?" Harry smirked, shaking his head as though addressing a truculent child. "Which 'notions' would those be, Draco? The one about Voldemort being back? Or the one about your father being back in Azkaban? Oh, that's right... that's not a notion, is it? That's true!"

Malfoy's back stiffened, "I'm warning you, Potter..."

"Warn away, Malfoy," Harry said dismissively as he opened a compartment door further down the aisle. "I assure you, someone is probably listening... only it won't be me."

And with that, he ushered Ginny into the compartment and stepped in himself, sliding the door closed behind them.

"Ferretboy strikes again," Ginny muttered, tossing her shoulder bag on the seat in front of her.

"You okay?"

Ginny turned surprised eyes back to him, "Please tell me you're joking? You expect me to be upset over that?"

"Not expect, exactly," Harry flushed. "Just... Malfoy can be a real..."

"Prat. Yes. I know," Ginny nodded, laughing. "I've been around here for five years, myself, you know."

Harry sighed.

"Harry," Ginny wrapped her arms around his neck, a wicked little smile playing about her mouth. "It would take more than Draco Malfoy and his rather empty threats to upset me."

"Good," Harry smiled. "What would it take? Just so... you know... I don't do anything unknowingly..."

"Well, if you don't lock that door, put up some privacy charms, and kiss me senseless in the next five minutes..."

Another convulsive swallow as Harry waved his wand at the glass partition behind him.

"...I'll be very upset."

It was very quiet in the compartment for the next little while, and thankfully, no one noticed that the door was locked, or that a quick charm made it look like the compartment was completely empty.


The welcoming feast that evening went off beautifully. Everyone said so. However, Harry would not later be able to recall even what he ate. His eyes didn't stray far from the red-head at his side... and it wasn't the red-head who had sat next to him at the Welcoming Feast every year up until now... this year that red-head sat across from him... with a bushy-haired brunette next to him.

The red-head in question had had him so tied in knots by an hour into the train trip north that Harry wondered if he'd ever think straight again. There were an awful lot of people who were going to be very disappointed in him when the final confrontation with Voldemort came about and all Harry could do would be to think of a certain witch with ginger curls.

He had to get his head back on straight. Unfortunately, he didn't exactly know how to do that... and he wasn't entirely convinced that he wanted to, in any case. Ginny made him feel...

Well, he didn't really want to think of what Ginny made him feel. At least not here. Not in front of her brother... and certainly not in front of the entire school. That was a situation which could prove to be beyond embarrassing, and he'd had quite enough of that to be going on with.

Although perhaps not quite enough of Ginny...

The evening passed quickly, and they found themselves walking together, the four of them, as they made their way up to the Common Room and towards their respective dorms. Harry pulled Ginny to one side and kissed her thoroughly, much to the stunned disbelief of several other Gryffindor students still in the Common Room.

Grinning, Harry looked down at her. "Good night."

"Good night, Harry," she breathed softly, her lips still swollen from his kiss.

"I'll..."

"Harry, bloody hell, stop mooning over my sister and get the hell up here!" Ron called from halfway up the stairs. Harry flushed.

"Good night."

"Good night," she repeated, turning and running up the staircase to the girl's dorms.

Harry followed Ron, a silly grin on his face.


He was in a room. It was cold... he was... it felt damp. There was a box in the corner, and several paintings stacked beside it, leaning against the wall. And he was alone. Completely and utterly alone.

Then he was suddenly in the field outside Hagrid's hut, and several feet away a beautiful woman stood, in a long, flowing white dress. She held out a hand to him, and smiled. He desperately wanted to go to her. Her red hair fluttered around her shoulders.

She beckoned, and he stepped forward. It was Ginny. He wanted...

It wasn't Ginny. He looked closer. This woman was older, and she had green eyes.

"Mum?" Harry said hesitantly.

"You have the power he knows not, Harry... you must find it."

"Mum... I don't know how..."

"You have the power he knows not, Harry... you must find it."

She was beautiful, her long copper curls down past her waist held back from her face with some sort of metal band across her forehead. The white dress, floating about her, didn't do much to disguise the fact that she was tall, but slight. There was a long rope-like belt about her waist, and a golden feather hung from it.

Harry looked at her, feeling the tears come to his eyes. If he was dreaming, then he never wanted to wake up.

But the look on her face stopped him. She seemed... pained. Her eyes were filled with sorrow, and Harry could almost see the beginnings of tears in their green depths.

She was upset, desperate to make him see...

"Mum... I don't..."

But she was gone. He turned around, helplessly, desperately looking for her. She had just... disappeared. The field was empty. Harry looked around, at Hagrid's hut in the distance, at the school behind him. At the Forbidden Forest. She was gone.

In his dream, he wept.


"Harry, that's the third time you've measured that wrong," Ron muttered to him. "Snape is going to pounce on us if you don't pay attention, and I don't know about you, mate, but I can do without scrubbing the dungeon floors my first week back."

"Sorry, Ron," Harry said dully.

"What in bloody hell is wrong with you?"

"I'm dreaming again..." Harry said, his green eyes meeting his friend's crystal blue ones. Ron's eyes showed his alarm.

"But the occlumency? It's not working?"

"Not of Voldemort. I'm not dreaming about him. I think he's learned his lesson on that, at any rate. No... I'd almost... well, I'm not dreaming about him. It's my mother. I'm dreaming about my mother."

"Your mother?"

"I don't know, Ron... she... she tells me I have to find the power, that I have it, but I have to find it."

"Bloody hell, Harry!" Ron looked shaken.

"You're telling me."

"Have you ever dreamt about her before?"

"Not like this," Harry shook his head. "This is almost... well, you know how I told you how it's different when I dream normally and dream about Voldemort?"

"Yeah... you said it seemed more real."

"Yes," Harry nodded, looking his friend in the eye. "Well, it's like that."

"Harry!" Ron glanced nervously around the room. "You have to tell someone... you have to tell Dumbledore!"

"Ron, it's my mother. I doubt very much..."

"Harry, you know what he's capable of making you believe in your dreams. Sirius..."

Harry stilled, and took a quick breath. He still had difficulty with that.

"It's not like that, Ron."

"No, but it's not like a normal dream, either, right?"

"No."

"Harry, you have to."

"I..."

"Harry, it could mean something... and even if Dumbledore doesn't... well, he might be able to tell you why, you know?"

"But..."

"What if she's got a message for him? What if she's... trying... I don't know..."

"If she had a message for Dumbledore, Ron, don't you think it would make more sense for him to dream about her?"

"Well..."

"Ron, you don't actually believe..."

"Harry, when I was eight, my Nan died. Three weeks after the funeral, I lost my Chudley Cannons hat. It was my favorite. Bill had gotten it for me from a bloke at school whose brother was a Chaser for them... I didn't go anywhere...

"Ron, get to the point," Harry rubbed a hand across his eyes.

"Well, my Nan came to me in a dream, and told me that I'd left it in the old tree fort down by the river."

"And...?"

"And the next day I went and checked, and it was there," Ron said with some satisfaction. "Don't dismiss it, Harry... there's more than we understand about..."

"Okay, Ron."

"You'll talk to him?"

"If I have another one... it might be just a one-off, right?"

Ron looked doubtful, but nodded a moment later. "Could be. You know... with your seeing the house and... well, this summer... and your aunt and... and... everything."

Harry nodded, turning back to his cauldron. Snape stood sneering at him. Great.

This was not turning out to be the best of days.


Harry, Ron, and Hermione left double Potions that morning, and met up with Ginny outside the Transfiguration classroom on their way to lunch.

"I do not know how they expect us to do this!" she complained loudly. "I mean, it's our first day and McGonagall assigned three feet of parchment and a book to be read for next class... and that's on top of Charms this morning... I already have enough homework for the entire week!"

Hermione laughed. "Sixth year is when they get serious, Ginny. You didn't think it would get easier, did you?"

"But last year was OWLs," Ginny wailed. "You'd think they'd give us a chance to catch our breath..."

"That was what the summer was for," Harry laughed, putting his arm around Ginny and leading her along, Ron and Hermione walking along beside.

"Oh, and our summers are normally so uneventful, right?" Ginny scoffed.

"Well, it could be worse, Gin..." he said.

Expecting her to tease back, she surprised him by turning tear-filled eyes up to him.

"Oh, Harry... I know! I'm sorry..."

"Hey!" He caught her close. "What's this all about?"

"With everything that you went through this summer, and to have me complaining about homework..."

"Gin, I was teasing... please..."

She buried her face in his shoulder, and Harry looked up to find Hermione looking at them curiously and Ron, his eyebrows raised nearly into his hairline, staring at his sister.

"Ginny?"

"I'm sorry," she smiled up at him. "It's been a very long morning... and I wasn't expecting to..."

"To?"

"Well, to miss you so much," she whispered into his shoulder.

"I didn't like being away from you, either," Harry said softly, looking up when he heard Ron give a disgusted snort and begin to walk away, Hermione in tow. "Now, come on, and let's go have some lunch before Ron eats everything."

With a rather watery smile, Ginny nodded and let him lead her after the others into the Great Hall. Unfortunately, the four were almost immediately confronted by Draco Malfoy and his gang of Slytherins.

"Well, well, if it isn't Potty and his pet Weasels... and the mudblood, of course. Tell me, mudblood, do you ever go anywhere without one or the other of them? Do you go... everywhere... with them?"

Draco's eyes slid down Hermione's rather lush figure and then back up to her eyes, a clear invitation, and insult, apparent there.

"Shut up, ferretboy!" Ginny ground out.

"Ah, Weaslette... I've been dreaming about you, too..." Draco turned his attention to the youngest Weasley, and Harry tightened his hold on her. "Yes, you've figured prominently in a lot of my dreams... I wonder if the reality would be as... satisfying?"

"Let me make something abundantly clear, Malfoy," Harry gritted through clenched teeth, his eyes cold. "If you speak to her again, if you open your mouth in her presence, if you dare to breath in her general direction, I will make sure that every breath you take is like fire in your lungs. I will hunt you down, and make what Voldemort does to those who disobey him look like loving discipline. I will make your life hell, and I won't stop there. Do you understand me?"

"Carry on, Potter... you can threaten all you like, but you're still a blood-traitor..." Draco sneered. Harry took a step closer, taking satisfaction from the glint in Draco's eyes that said he wasn't nearly as confident as he would like to make out.

"What, exactly, does that mean, Malfoy? Can you tell me, or are you just spouting what you hear from dear old Dad?"

Draco glared at him.

"Can't be that, Harry," Ron said, his voice dark and controlled. A new Ron was emerging from the schoolboy he'd been, as well. "From what I hear, Malfoy hasn't seen his Daddy in, what is it now, Ferretface? A year or so?"

Harry stared the Slytherin boy down.

"Do not get in my way, Draco," he said in a very low, angry voice. "That is a place you really, really do not want to be. Not anymore."

As they approached the Gryffindor table, Harry was surprised when Ginny looked up at him with a rather angry flush about her cheeks.

"You didn't need to do that, I can take care of myself. I can take care of Malfoy," she said shortly.

"I know I didn't need to... I wanted to. I want him to know that he doesn't mess with my friends."

"Maybe your friends are perfectly capable of letting him know that for themselves."

"Gin? Don't you..." Harry was confused. Ginny almost sounded as though she wanted Malfoy to talk to her that way.

"I want to know that you want to be with me for me, Harry... that you don't feel you have to be with me to protect me. I want you to know that I'm capable of taking care of myself, not some silly damsel in distress..."

"I know that, Gin. I do. You're the most capable..."

Ginny snorted.

"Hey," Harry said, honestly surprised. "You were with me in the Department of Mysteries. I've seen you in action in DA club... I know how capable you are."

"Harry, just don't go all big brother on me, okay?" Her brown eyes pleaded with him. "I already have plenty of those. I don't want to be like that with you."

"I won't," he agreed. "But I'll be damned if I let Malfoy get away with things like that, either. You're my... you're mine. And he's not going to..."

"I'm yours, am I?" she sparkled up at him, twisting his stomach... and other parts of him, mercilessly. "Right... and don't you forget it, Mr Potter."

Harry figured it was unlikely he would. She made him forget pretty much everything but her most of the time. Looking around, he realized it was lunch time and they were in the Great Hall. Ginny was sitting down, and pulling him down beside her.

He sighed. At this point, it would be a wonder if he managed to eat anything at all. It was difficult to eat when all you could think of was the soft skin and sparkling eyes of the prettiest witch you knew.


So I hope you're enjoying this. A few questions with the reviews this time... I hope I answered them here:

Liu Kuanrong/Bei Kuailiang: You're my first reviewer on this story! Thank you!

Shotgunn: Oh, he-of-the-merciless-ego-stroking... I do love your reviews!

Rdprice: LOL! Something tells me your expectations are rather high! I'll have to do my best to meet them!

RyougaZell: Nah – we can't do that... we have to have him around the school to torment a little first...

ImaQuidditchFan: There will be many epiphanies in this story, I hope.

IndiaInk: Hmm, yes... one of the Malferret's many talents... we shall be seeing some of He-Who-Bounces in this story, I think... we need a few petty annoyances in there somewhere, and we can't expect Snape to do it all.

Eris, Queen of Shadows: Yes, we must have fluff... H/G fluffiness is important in my fics... I like to dream.

ThundersShadow: So it does! ONCE AGAIN... INTO THE BREACH!

Merlindamage: Thank you!

PlumCrazyRangerBabe: You must have one of the most unique names I've ever read... very interesting (I'm sure there is a story there somewhere! LOL!) Plenty of "college distraction" I promise!

Nimbarosa: Yep – Canuckian here!

Kazziedal: Well, I have to let them suffer a LITTLE... people would be terribly unsatisfied if I didn't have a little Ron/Hermy angst in there. Right now, I'm saying probably thirty chapters... or so. In there somewhere. About. Kind of. Maybe. Hey, talk to the muse!

Sunflower3623: Well, they may be short... but they're frequent. I try to update daily. As you can imagine, though, sometimes it's just not possible. I suppose I average 3-4 chapters a week, though.

GeeUnit: "Invisible"? Hmmm... you could always make use of the author alert feature... (hint, hint...)

Pdlegirl: You said it! Malfoy is certainly a git, isn't he?

Gina: I will certainly say something if I post anything original. It would, of course, be over at that OTHER site... LOL – but I'm actually going to try to get someone interested in publishing it first. Maybe... Or maybe I'm being overly optimistic!

Weselan: Gred and Forge will be making a later appearance with a... unique... take on the Zonkos butterfly confetti... And don't worry about Malfoy... the day IS coming! As for the updates... you know me too well! I think Charlie has just gotten into the habit of being overprotective of Ginny. I don't think he even realizes he does it... I don't think any of them really do.

Lerf: You're right, it's not used enough! I may have to change that... As for the witticisms, you certainly don't have to wait for one of THOSE to come along to comment – it's nice just to hear from my readers!

Jaina Sanri: Thanks!

Alli-Baby: You have a "lovely" older brother? I had five older brothers, and I have to say, "lovely" was not something, as their little sister, I would EVER have described them as... well – maybe now that I'm older, and married, and they're not intimidating my dates...

JapaneseJew: A pranked banana? Oh, my... someone HAS had too much sugar, haven't they? I'll see if that amuses the muse... sometimes she feels the need to use this stuff later on... may I?

YelloWitchGrl: I'm glad to BE back... I missed all this!

PCB: Here in southern Alberta, it's lovely and warm – snow is almost gone... you've got to love chinooks, don't you? I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "chinook" any longer, as it's lasted for days. I'm rather hesitant to call it by the "s" word, but could it be that lovely season has arrived early? Let's hope. I'm going to punt my kids outside soon, as well... lovely, lovely day! I'm your favorite? Really? Cool!

MrsSakuraPotter: Short reviews are as welcome as long ones, my dear. I'm glad to hear I'm keeping you occupied during your breaks! As to the beta thing... I'll ask around, but at the moment, I don't know of anyone who is accepting new stuff.

Thank you, all CQ