Chapter Five: Dreams

There were always two sides to a person. Sometimes more, but usually, only two. One black and one white that would mix into a blend of gray…sometimes heavier on the black, sometimes heavier on the white, but almost never a perfect mix. It wasn't that the black side was the necessary "evil" one – at least not evil in the sense of bad wolves and witches that cackled into the night – but more of a…corrupted one. In the same way that white was never necessary "good", just a blinding pureness that sometimes managed to cover up other stealthier traits. It was strange, but the more perfect a person seemed, the more they probably had an altogether completely different personality while the people who clumsily ran around, adorned with so many cracks that you could not see the whole anymore, were closer to the perfect mix of gray than ever imaginable.

Lily Evans spent the last few years of her childhood developing her black side.

Dreams had always been part of Lily's life. She was actually quite glad that her coming to Hogwarts had not erased them, for as strange as they were, they were the one thing she could hold on to and depend to be consistent. During a quick stint in her second year of school, the teacher had told them that dreams were images your mind created during your sleep so you wouldn't be bored. But Lily never agreed with that definition. Dreams were the second door that you could step through, push a button, and be transported to a could have world, a might have. Sometimes the door opened to a dark and murky area, where she strained to see through the haze around her, a sort of symbolic representation that she could never quite understand. At other times, the door opened into a bright area, sort of like those children's shows she'd see in school where the sun was shining, the grass was a green bordering almost on blue, and there was a wise man sitting on top of a hill watching over everyone playing. She could never focus that much on playing with the others though – first because she had never had the experience of interacting with anyone her age, much less physical playing with them. Second because she spent the entire time there nervous that one wrong move would end the life. And thirdly, the little dark voice that had continuously grown bigger within her head that whispered that she could never find perfection, that even in a place like this, there would always be a certain twist to it that would bring it all down.

When the girl was alone the manikin came again for the third time, and said, "What will you give me if I spin the straw for you this time also?"

"I have nothing left that I could give," answered the girl.

"Then promise me, if you should become queen, to give me your first child."

She was never sure if she was dreaming or if finally, it was actually happening to her. She never properly went to sleep, spending her nights turning on one side, then turning back to realize that two hours and passed in between. The images of her dreams sifted through the darkness of her room, so that she'd see bits and pieces, here and there. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, except for that this jigsaw puzzle never had any cracks…just a flowing sort of rhythmic motion that disappeared as soon as the first slants of day reached in. At long last she came up with a phrase that could almost describe it: a liquid fantasy. But like all other sorts of liquids, each one would slowly pour away into a collection bin to be hauled away every morning.

She used to have a reoccurring one that visited her every night, like a good friend who would walk to school with you and share a cookie. As she quickly grew older, it visited less and less, almost becoming hesitant in its approach. Yet just like a long time friend, on certain days when she felt more melancholy than usual and would contemplate the meaning of life once again, it would drop by and ring the doorbell, and Lily would greet it with a smile on her face and a pan of cookies to share. How pathetic is it, she'd think to herself from the bench, watching the others swinging on the monkey bars, that my best friend isn't even something I can properly share with anyone else? Does that make it even more precious? Or just hopeless?

She loved islands the most. It was fascinating to her that such a secluded area, isolated from the rest of the world by miles of oceans, would be able to thrive and support such an environment. Islands had always held a magical sort of thought for her – from the time she was five, she questioned how plants and animals could possibly live on the area, because how would they get there in the first place? Even after her third year in school, when she learned that islands weren't originally surrounded by oceans, she still held onto her belief in its sheer enchantment. She used to believe that islands were just huge slabs of sand and dirt, pasted together and drifting off into the sea, teetering on the edges of the earth and then plunging down into the stars and infinite blackness. When she found out that they were just the tip top of a larger part hidden by the shadowy green water, it was perfectly fine. She liked to believe that because the actual island was brave enough to emerge from the slow and warm waters and become covered with dry and itchy sand that got everywhere, it was rewarded with a plethora of lush greens and blossoms opened during the entire year and shared with the birds and other species that came from the rainbows that would paint a banner above it.

The king's son ascended, but instead of finding his dearest Rapunzel, he found the enchantress, who gazed at him with wicked and venomous looks. "Aha," she cried mockingly, "you would fetch your dearest, but the beautiful bird sits no longer singing in the nest. The cat has got it, and will scratch out your eyes as well."

When she was still living in her moth eaten mattress and hoping for princesses and towers that princes could climb up onto, she lived for these islands. There wasn't much she could live for then; the only things that she could truly hold onto without anyone knowing was what could only be kept inside her. Certain days of the week would find Lily standing outside her sister's room, trying to summon enough courage to walk in and talk to Petunia about what she felt inside. About all the hate and disgust at the way they were living, at the way that an eight-year-old girl had to fend for herself when she wasn't even tall enough to reach the top refrigerator shelves yet. At having a perpetual stickiness about the house that clung to your skin and wouldn't come out of your hair so that the children at school kept their safe distance away from her. When she had grown older and looked back, she wondered many times why her happiest childhood memories were spent crawling into a corner and letting her fingertips trace hidden messages in the dust and blow gently on cobwebs.

There was always the buzz of the telly somewhere in the background, the distinct sound of cheap entertainment that Lily soon learned to block out. There were certain nights when she was eternally grateful for it – it was the one thing that always remained consistent in the household. It was her lullaby, her song, to silence her to sleep at night. There had only been one time when Lily could still recall that the telly had been turned off – the doorbell had rang and there stood three men with shiny badges with their hats in their hands and a crease in their forehead. She vaguely remembered shouts and the three flinging themselves onto her father to hold him back as he screamed with clawed his way out.

Quickly, she learned that no one would be there to pick her up from school every day and through trial and error, found a path home that she followed for the next six years. No one walked with her – Petunia was out an hour earlier, and all the rest of the kids ignored her or worse, yelled hurtful things at her turned back. She had once tried to fight back – before she knew it, four of them had pounced on her and she spent the rest of the school day in the nurse's office. The warm lady had at first tried to contact her father. "Do you have any money, sweetie?" she asked in her soft voice. "Call your father and ask him to pick you up from school."

Hansel, however, little by little, threw all the crumbs on the path. The woman led the children still deeper into the forest, where they had never in their lives been before.

Lily had kept her head down focused on the tiles. They were blue and white, each one approximately the size of the toe of her shoe. Lined up perfectly, side by side and front and back, they reminded her of soldiers marching nowhere. "Do you need change?" she asked once more.

Yes, Lily had thought. I do need change.

Everyday she would entertain herself with the thought of an island in her home. That she would peel the door open on its rickety hinges, and that behind it would be an island in the sun. She wanted sunsets that would sink slowly in the faraway waves, trees that she could climb onto and slowly stroke their bark, and above all, flowers. She wanted to spend eternity and a day there, just herself and maybe a book, to watch the slope of the bars of honey-color decrease slowly, sliding up into the bushes, and passing over the green candle-like buds of fresh flowers, up towards the canopy of tree leaves and leave a thick darkness. The island would mute down, soft, pearly colors would take over and the world would curl inwardly for a moment. The waxed lilies would open their wide white flowers glimmering under the light and pricked down from the first stars. Their scent would spill into the air and take possession of the island.

"But, grandmother, what large hands you have."

"The better to hug you with."

And every time as she opened the door, heart gently hoping, she would be greeted by the same sight of her oaf of a father on the sofa watching the telly and drinking, always drinking. "What you doing 'ere?" he growled, flinching away from her and cuddling his bottle.

"I've just gotten home from school, Father."

"Well, go on! Don't jus' stand there lookin' 'round. Dinner 'as to be cooked."

She had lost her island in the sun forever. And yet…

…perhaps Hogwarts could be her castle in the sky.

"Peter, how lovely!"

"You really are the best, you know?"

"I definitely think that you can be whatever you want to when you grow up."

"I'm so proud of you, darling! A wizard, going off to Hogwarts. Congratulations!"

Even after five years of no longer living with them, the voices never changed. They were always filled with happiness, the embarrassing sort of pride that makes your face red in public. They made him believe that he really was good enough, best enough to touch the sun.

He remembers in Muggle Studies that in certain armies in the world, boot camp was to completely crush the soldiers' morale, then build it up again. It so happened the opposite here – his parents built him up so high, and then Hogwarts tore it down. This time, there was no one left to build him back up.

His body structure had never bothered him before. In grade school, it was still considered cute, and all he needed to do was flash a toothy grin and light up his eyes, and no one cared that much. God. Sometimes the wish to be a child again was so great that it physically hurt. Children didn't beat around the bush – they were in your face, and they weren't afraid to approach topics that normally were shoved into the "back talking" area. Such simple things, things that he continued to take for granted every day, made their day. Peter wanted to feel again what it was like to live in a world where you knew that you could stand on clouds, not fall through them. That grass was just grass, there for you to lie upon, the world's carpet, not about all the pesticides and fertilizers put in. That sunsets blushing pinks and golds were just a painting of the sky, not a reflection of all the pollution. To think that really, if you stretched high enough and jumped with enough energy, your fingertips could brush the sky. As he slowly grew older (perhaps not more mature, but older, nonetheless), he realized that adulthood was just a slow closing in.

Dear Peter,

We know that it's a particularly difficult time right now, what with you studying for your O.W.L.s and no doubt a lot of homework. However, we'd just like to say that we know you'll do fine on everything you try. You've always been able to do anything you've set your heart to, and we know how big your heart is!

It's a shame you couldn't visit us this year on Christmas break this year, but maybe you can make it for Easter, right? We're both looking forward very much to seeing you again.

We'll keep the letter short because we do know you've got a lot of work to do, but good luck on everything!

Love forever,

Mum and Dad

Merlin. Mum and Dad. He'd always tell himself he'd spend more time with them next year, this year he had too much to do. How long had he kept this little charade game up to himself? Every time he thought about his parents at home, poring over his old textbooks to try to grasp a stronger concept of the wizarding world, he felt a twinge of something akin to guilt. But at school, he had better things to do with his time than worry about how his parents were. So he shoved the problem into a little corner in the back of his mind, until the twinge slowly went away. Of course he couldn't come for Easter break this year. That was when the Marauders began their planning sessions for their end-of-the-year prank.

The day Peter turned ten (double-digits day), his grandmother on his mother's side had passed away. He had no idea, only going downstairs and looking around everywhere for his parents, who usually were waiting right at the foot of stairs, singing "Happy Birthday". This year, the usual presents were on the table, the cake was sitting resplendently on top of everything, and the only thing out of place was the phone, off the cradle and dangling helplessly as if from a noose. He had picked it up, only to hear the blunt sound of the dial tone and hung up.

He stopped outside his parent's room, wondering what was going on. They were awake, he could definitely hear that. There was the sound of rustles, and a tiny whimpering. Mum? he thought.

But then the door had swung open on its own accord, and there was his Mum, smiling so brightly it seemed she was trying her best to stretch out her face as much as possible and his Dad with a wry look on his face.

"Happy birthday, dear!" she exclaimed, with Peter barely noticing her voice had cracked in the middle. She flung her arms around him, hiding her face in the crook of his neck. "Goodness, ten years old! Double digits, finally, eh?"

"Yes, Mum."

She pushed him gently down the stairs, chirping joyfully. "…you know, I've spent so much time making your cake this year, I think you're really going to like it. John? Why don't you take Peter downstairs first? I'm just going to change out of this nightgown." She gestured to her ensemble, then tried to smile at his father.

His father had blinked, then suddenly made the connection. "Ah! Yes, of course. Come along now, Peter." He ushered Peter to the stairs, but not before placing a comforting hand on his mother's shoulders. And in that moment when their eyes connected, ten-year-old Peter had a first seat glimpse into parenthood.

It wasn't until almost a month later that his parents came to him with the sad news that Grandmother Anne had passed away in her sleep last night. Peter had sat there on the couch, putting forward his best acting skills and trying to convey the right sadness, all the while wondering what sort of mask parenthood had forced on Mum and Dad.

He suddenly remembered long nights waiting up for Dad to come home from work, only to be tucked into bed by his mother with the news that his father had gotten held up in traffic. Knowing that near midnight, his father would return home, exhausted to the ends of his wits, but proudly holding up a paycheck, most of which would go to his birthday presents this year. He remembered Mum turning a shade of red he had never seen before when she went over to the neighbor's house for tea and someone commented on the state of her fingernails, not painted gaily with reds or pinks but chipped and thick from cooking every meal of the day, laundry, scrubbing, and whatnot. The other women had invited her out to get manicures, but she had politely declined. That night, Peter crawled out of bed and watched as Mum and Dad got out the cash they kept under the bed, and counted it, each pound making a difference. In their hands, they held a list, one that Peter had recognized as his own handwriting, listing down every action figure he had seen on television in the past month, and the faces borne onto his parents when they realized they still did not have enough.

"I'll take the late shift again tomorrow," Dad had said, smoothing down Mum's hair gently.

"I'm so sorry, John. I wish we didn't have to do this. I just…" Her chest heaved with sobs held in by years of practice. "H-Hannah had more of an effect on me than I wanted to. I can't – I can't lose Peter the same way."

And sweet, naïve Peter had actually believed that up until then, that they were higher than the students he saw come to school in old Salvation Army clothing, and that his mother had actually convinced him that most of his presents were from his friends.

He glanced forlornly at his rows of action figures, all lined up neat and tidy. How…so much money….in a burst of anger, he knocked all of them down, taking a satisfaction in watching them tumble down onto the carpet…the only room in the house with carpet…

But even from the floor, their plastic faces glared up at him, accusing and reproachful, a mass produced factory object that knew so much more about poverty than he ever would.

He walked out of the portrait, no idea where he was heading, only knowing that his hands were grasping parchment and that his feet were steadily moving forward.

"Peter! What are you doing here?" Lily rounded the corner and peered at him inquisitively.

He stared back. "What are you doing here?" he challenged.

Affronted, Lily sniffed. "I happen to be prefect. I've been finishing my rounds. It's past ten o'clock, Peter. You're not supposed to be out."

Something was happening to him. He seemed to have lost all control of his motor functions. "I know," he heard his mouth saying. "I just…I just really need to send this letter."

"It's so important that it can't wait until morning?"

"Yes. It is."

Lily's eyes narrowed. "Are you really just sending a letter?"

He really didn't know what to do now, but his mouth kept going on. "Please, Lily." Oh Merlin, his voice just cracked. "It's…I really need to send this letter."

"Who's it to?"

He paused, then dived forward. If he said it out loud now, it really would be true. "It's for…it's for my Mum and Dad."

Lily's expression softened, and in that moment, she saw finally saw Peter Pettigrew, not Peter-part-of-the-Marauders. "Alright then. Just be quick and come right back."

He unfolded the letter carefully to read it one last time before sending it off with the owl.

Dear Mum and Dad,

Good news – I'm coming home for Easter break! I'm really excited…

Right. Well, what can I say? My computer crashed on me for two months. This is my second day online, finally. Thank you so much to you all for still sticking by. And here we go with the reviews!

Bellebuckbeak: You're such a loyal reviewer! And I do hope the "mystery" will be cleared for you later on.

Gulldara: You! I haven't heard from you in ages. Thank you for technology. And of course, thank you for the very, very cool review.

The ORIGINAL meathead: It means a lot to me that you've been here since the prologue. You rock for staying on the boat!

Stasya: You told me to focus more on Peter, so here it is! I hope you liked it.

Bubbles: Don't worry, I have a feeling you're going to be seeing a lot more of Lily.

Shading in Grey: Thanks for the compliment. I appreciate it a lot.

Irish Silhouette: How sad is it that I couldn't spell your username on the first try? You have a really interesting name too. Hope my POV-changing continues to be good.

Mb4: Well, I didn't update that soon, but I tried!

Angel-girl-xxx: Me? Talented? Wow. Thanks for the comment!

Fairy-Dust 888: You seriously are one of my favorite reviewers. Man, you are good at giving compliments:)

Absolutely-morvellous: Oh man, I feel so guilty, I haven't talked to you in forever. I swear I'll leave lots of comments in your lj soon. And thank you so much.

Maria: Yeah, I'll work on that updating "quicker" part a bit.

Running out of ink: Wow, I feel so honored to be added to your favorites list. Thanks a bunch!

Ella: You left a really sweet comment. I really appreciate it.

Silverspinner: Hoo boy. I think your review was longer than my entire chapter! God, thank you for being such an inspiration and hanging out with dorky little me all the time and especially a HUUUGE thanks for the HUUUGE review! That completely made my month.

Firebringer: It's nice to hear that you like the different views of each character. I tried to make them not all robots.

Tweeny-weeny: That is seriously one of the highest compliments you could ever give me – that my story seems realistic. That's really what I'm shooting for, and I'm so glad you pointed it out.

Whimsical89: You compared me to E.E. Cummings. Therefore, you are golden.

Wwc other guy: Thank you for pointing out James and Sirius's situation. I will try hard to smooth it out.

Clyna: Yes, I definitely am planning on keeping this story going, thanks to people like you! (I sound like a PBS commercial, don't I?)

Elyra 'Darkwynde' HaliwellSuperb writing? Why thank you then!

See you next time (which, I promise, will be shorter than this time)!