Disclaimer: NOT MINE! I'm not making money, I'm having fun. And hopefully so are you.

Author's Note: I'm sorry about this, the last chapter was supposed to be much longer, but I was having trouble writing it in time, so I split it into two chapters. I need a better title for the book, and for the last chappy, so send me any suggestions. But this chapter is longer than the others anyway! Yay!

Many thanks to Lunalelle and Sant for inspiring me to write fanfiction, as well as Red Hen for helping me with a concept (which I tweaked to fit the needs of this story) of magical history in general and the difference between Dark and Light magic specifically.

Number 17, Cherry Tree Lane

A large circle of cloaked shadows. In the center stood Tom, anxious, looking at the black silhouettes, hidden by the fires behind them more than by the dark night, and feeling the wild beat of drums beat through his body. They jumped, twisted, and twirled, dancing to the drums, dancing in front of the fire. Two of them, he noticed, had robes that seemed different in design somehow. Or perhaps in color, it was difficult to tell. Why was his vision blurred? He was used to looking into fire.

The distinctive smell of burning wood reached his nostrils, soothing him as it always did, and leaving him vaguely wondering why the flames were not magical in nature. Above him, a few stars twinkled faintly.

The different two stepped from the circle, and as they moved closer to him and away from the flames that so damaged his vision, he noted that the difference was, indeed, in color – their cloaks were white, and those of the others seemed to be black. One of them moved behind him, the other in front, and he managed to realize, the dim light notwithstanding, that either they were wearing masks, or their faces were painted. He felt a soft cloth put against his eyes, and the fire vanished. The person behind him pulled, squeezing his eyeballs slightly, but he did not protest, knowing somehow that he was not allowed to speak if he wanted the ceremony to take its course. And he found that he did, very much so. As she tied the blindfold on, she caught some of his hair into it, pulling it and forcing Tom to wince with the pain. Physical pain. He had had enough of that, God knew, why was it affecting him? Everything felt as though he was young, new-born, so sharp and clear and new

He felt something touch his mouth and knew that he had to open it, which he did, feeling smooth skin against his lips, then tasting an incredibly sweet, warm something in his mouth. It had all the delicious smoothness of chocolate and the sharpness of mint, and it melted wonderfully within his mouth, filling him with soft warmth, the taste lingering within his mouth long after he had swallowed whatever it was.

It felt wonderfully good, like the exhilaration of cold wind on his face and the comforting, dry heat of the sun's rays on his back. Like the glee of having finally succeeded at something he had tried to do for a long time. It felt like every wonderful feeling at once.

A voice snapped him out of his pleasurable trance. Hermione's voice. Dimly registering it as odd, he listened to her question as though his life depended on it.

"Do you like it?"

He could not begin to explain how much every bit of him wanted to say yes, how perfect the feeling was, better than anything else he had ever felt in his entire life, better than the wonderful joy of seeing people die at his hands. All he could do was nod enthusiastically.

"What do you see?" she asked, her voice expressionless. No, it wasn't Hermione, but a different voice, another woman's, low and full of emotion. Bellatrix.

What was he supposed to see? He was blindfolded. He opened his eyes below the soft cloth, but still he was blind. "Darkness," he responded hesitantly, wanting to say he saw something but knowing he could not lie.

The blindfold was torn from his eyes, and they watered as the light of the fire assaulted him, letting him see little better than when the cloth had stood between him and the world. He felt himself being pushed and he stumbled towards the fire, feeling dreadfully cold now that the wondrous feeling had gone.

"Go," he heard from behind him, both women speaking, their voices merging in perfect harmony – the only good thing in the world which was now harsh and cold. "You will never be one of us. You lack the magic within you." The dance had not stopped, but where it was beautiful, in a savage way, before, now it seemed manic, disgusting, wild.

He managed to make it through the line, now seeing better, though the sharp clarity of before was lost, but not without being hit several time by the hands and feet of these people. These animals. He looked back, but the blue and green afterimages of the dancing flames hid Hermione and Bellatrix from view. It was probably just as well.

He was shivering.

Despite the two feather comforters under which he had buried himself.

He was shivering.

Even though it was a June 15th and not unseasonably cold, the weather in fact being quite agreeable and sunny.

He was shivering.

He stepped out from below his covers, feeling hardly more cold, and hurried to the kitchens, waving his wand in order to set water to boiling, readying tea. He stared out the window at the darkened street as he waited. When it was ready, he poured himself a cup too quickly, letting some of the water spill onto his hand, the heat of it burning him. He downed the steaming liquid very quickly, feeling it warm him up from inside. Feeling better, he walked to his desk in study and opened his journal. He didn't really like the name journal. This was more of an exercise in self-analysis. But then, journal fit what he was doing much more than "diary".

A side effect of Occlumency is the ability to remember in perfect detail the most far-away memories, and the most obscure dreams. So as Tom wrote it all down, he did not miss a single detail, and his conscious, awake mind was much more successful at noticing the oddities.

"The second time Mlle. Grangère shows up in my dreams. Both in a judging position as well. With Bellatrix this time. I must be anxious for their approval. Strange – I feel no such thing." Still at a loss, he put down his quill an decided to wake Hermione. They had to get the phoenix tears, after all.

O-o-o-O-o-o-O

Hermione walked behind him, wondering how he felt about his dreams, remembering them. He was tortured. The dreams were his own, she had not altered them. It was his own Nox that made him dream of being eaten by crows and judged. His own Nox that made him dream of being drugged and found to be lacking in magic, to be incapable of belonging. The thought brought a smile to her lips. So Tom wants to be in the circle, she mused, before remembering things Harry had told her. The Death Eaters gathered in a circle around Voldemort when they met, wearing masks and large, black cloaks. She shivered, though the day was warm – even too much so.

As she walked through Diagon Alley, she found it much quieter than when she had been alive, real. There seemed to be less shops, and several were boarded up.

"Are we going to Knockturn Alley?" she asked, almost sure they were. Hard to get potion ingredients screamed 'Illegal' to her, and she knew where illegal things usually came from.

Tom surprised her by answering "No." She had become accustomed to his ways of hiding his feelings and assumed that the monosyllabic nature of his answer and the silence they had been walking in meant he was in a bad mood. Probably the dreams, she thought.

They stopped at a small shop. "Being foreign, you would not know, but there are five alleyways here, not two. I'll take you to what is probably the most dangerous one. Be wary." Was his warning to be careful an admission that he cared for her, or simply some automatic words he would say to someone who had been living with him for some time?

They arrived to one of the many bends in Diagon Alley, and she saw that there was a building which was not a shop, but looked to be a private house. Tom walked up to the front door and knocked the knocker twice, in quick succession. As he took his pale, thin hand away, she saw that it was shaped like a unicorn. How very innocuous, she thought, wondering what was so dangerous about this.

The door opened, and a young man with mousy hair, sitting on the moldy couch which seemed to be the only bit of furniture in the room, looked up from his newspaper and greeted Tom. "Ah, it's you. Know where to go, then, don't you?" Tom nodded, and went up the old stairs. The reached a dark room with a threadbare carpet as its sole decoration, lit by an old-fashioned gas lamp. The only point of interest in this room was the door that stood on the other side, its paint peeling. Clearly, this house had seen better days.

They went through the door and found themselves face to face with a street that looked positively upper-class. The brick buildings all looked identical, down to the plaster moldings and wrought-iron balconies, and the trees that stood on the side of the street looked to be cherry trees in blossom. That's odd, it's not season for that, she thought and shrugged. Still following Tom, she walked down the street, trying very hard not to let down her guard. It looked so innocent – but Tom wouldn't have warned her for nothing.

She didn't notice anything wrong until she heard the two words that every wizard dreaded and loathed. "Avada Kedavra!" shouted a female voice somewhere on her right, and a jet of green light passed a hair's breadth away from the small of her back. She turned around, not to the voice as was her first impulse, but towards where the curse was headed, and saw an old man lying on the floor, his top hat rolling across the cobbled street.

"Don't make enemies of those who walk Cherry Tree Lane," whispered Tom from above her, and she started at the name. Cherry Tree Lane? Surely not! This dangerous street, named after a muggle book? The thought was enough to make her laugh. But she repressed the urge, an odd noise like a hiccup coming from her mouth instead.

They came to a house which was, naturally, an exact twin of all the others on the street, save for the brass numbers on its door, which were a 1 and a 7. Hermione stifled a giggle. Number 17, Cherry Tree Lane? This is either a coincidence, or someone who knows a lot about Muggles. Tom's pale fingers grasped the ornamental, fleur-de-lys knocker and he hit it hard, surprising Hermione who had been expecting a much more mild knock. After a while, footsteps were heard from within and a young witch opened the door. Whatever she had been expecting, this was not it: the woman's black curls tumbled down to her waist despite what seemed to be a sincere attempt to constrain them within a ponytail; her full, pink lips seemed to be capable of no expression other than a smile; her white, lacy dress in the falsely Creole fashion was constrained by a cerulean sash; and mismatched earrings, a little silver bell and a golden hoop, completed the impression of an overall eccentric person who would have been more at home on Travers' Cherry Tree Lane, with its gingerbread stars and talking sparrows, than on the real-life version where Hermione had witnessed a murder.

The apparition jumped at Tom and squeezed him affectionately, shouting about not having seen him for a long time. Tom muttered something along the lines of "I'm just a client..." and extricated himself with difficulty from the hug.

"Who's your pretty friend?" she asked, seeming only now to notice Hermione, who smiled and introduced herself as Hermione Grangère, Tom's research partner and a potion-maker.

"Melpomene," he said, his voice cold now, "I have come to ask you for some phoenix tears."

Hermione noted that he carefully closed the door behind him as he announced what he sought.

The witch smiled, leading them to a room, talking all the while, very fast. "Of course, phoenix tears are incredibly difficult to obtain, as not only do you need to find a phoenix, but you need to make it cry. I myself have only ever seen a real phoenix once, in China, but I'm not stupid Tom – as soon as I saw it I talked to it about art and how wonderful it was and it tolerated me for an entire day. Then I pretended to stumble and literally broke my leg. He cried liberally, but I caught all his tears in a vial. It's much easier to heal the wound another way. That's the vial you'll be getting, but it won't come cheap and I know you're not rich Tom, what do you expect to give me?" At this point they had arrived to a room covered in shelves containing all sorts of things – unicorn horns, small bouquets of flowers she recognized from her Dark Arts research, bottles of liquids of all sorts, gorgeous crimson and gold eggs... Melpomene, if that was her real name, reached for a tiny, dusty vial of red-tinted glass and held it in one hand, looking at Tom

"Same as always. A favor we agree on. Send me the owl – you know I keep my word."

Melpomene nodded and handed him the vial. "Mind you, if you don't, I have other people who owe me favors," she threatened with a smile, before hugging Tom again. "What do you need phoenix tears for, Tom? Or are they for you, Hermione?"

"We're working on an experimental potion – it'll need to be brewed on the solstice, but we're not sure if we're right. I'm positive we'll need the tears though.."

Hermione heard Tom say "good-bye" icily, and felt the awful pressure of Side-along Apparition on every inch of her body, before finding herself back at the study, gasping.

"What was that for?" she yelled. "I can Apparate on my own, thank you!"

His voice was calm, and he answered as he sat at his desk, looking at the Muggle street below. "You would have argued. Said you wanted to walk. And walking out of Melpomene's is stupid. Few people are willing to pay for her merchandise, but... well, you've seen the street."

Hermione accepted his logic and cursed her own foolishness at not catching it. "Well, then, may I have the vial? And I'll stop my current research to prepare for the potion and brew various others. I think a supply of, say, Veritaserum or of the Draught of Death would be handy to have around – and personally I wouldn't mind brewing them."

Tom smiled at her, recognizing Hermione, who had vanished temporarily as she screamed. That hadn't been like her. Or perhaps it had and he simply could not know. He pulled the little red bottle from his pocket and handed it to her.

O-o-o-O-o-o-O

He led Hermione and Bellatrix down the cliff, instinctively finding the right handholds and footholds. He heard her whimper above him and smiled. They would pay for having humiliated him. They had no ropes nor any other tools to aid in the dangerous climb, but they had to follow him.

He reached the rough surface, and saw the entrance to a cave, only half-submerged because the tide was low. Holding on to the abrupt face of the cliff, looking for all the world like a spider, his miserable clothes drenched from the spray, he waited. When they were near enough, he lowered himself into the water, not flinching from the cold, feeling the waves batter him but also loving the smooth caress of the ocean. He swam into the cave and reached a point were moist rock was available to stand upon. Noticing that the other two were behind, he let a taunting "So, are you coming" echo eerily through the dim cave.

They soon arrived, swimming in surface, and he noticed that neither seemed to be an excellent, or even a good, swimmer. Bellatrix in particular seemed incapable of putting her head below the surface, though perhaps that was due to the frigid temperature of the water.

The cave had only the slightest amount of light in it, and the cold was much greater within than without, so that the two girls shivered and huddled together. Tom, though, was neither cold nor wet, and his clothes had mysteriously dried. He led them deeper into the cave, knowing that it was safe for him – but not for them. Eventually the darkness became perfectly absolute, and noises louder. The slightest breath echoed menacingly, and even when staying on tiptoe the two girls' footsteps were as loud as elephants'. They heard their heartbeats pounding furiously. But it seemed that they were alone now. He could not be heard, and of course the darkness provided further concealment.

They spotted something moving in the impenetrable shadows, and heard a heavy breath coming from behind them. As they whirled around in terror, they saw absolutely nothing. Then they heard something that sounded very much like the irritating sound of a bee's flight – only the location transformed its irritating nature into something incredibly frightening.

It was all like before.

But this time he heard it too, and saw the gleaming red eyes, the drooling jaw, that advanced upon his victims, and he knew that it was real, that he wasn't just sending terror into their minds.

The buzz became louder and louder, and suddenly everything was quiet again, save for the noise of two pounding hearts. Breathing in relief, they dismissed everything as imaginary terrors.

But the red eyes came back, and the shadows were moving. They no longer felt each other's hands, or heard their own heartbeats, their own breath. The just saw the shadows moving and the red eyes glowing. And Tom wondered whether his heart had ever truly beaten, or if he was dead. Dead and in Hell.

He sat up in bed panting, hating himself for his weakness. Then suddenly it dawned on him. "I've been doing research into the Nox," she had said hen he had come back, "Trying to twist it to form nightmares, but I failed." What if she hadn't failed? Or maybe she hadn't been doing that sort of research at all. "I'm currently working on a potion to let the maker enter the dreams of the drinker." Whatever she had been doing, she had something to do with this.

O-o-o-O-o-o-O

Author's Note: If you like what I've done with dreams in the past two chapters, read my fic Dreams and Memories, which so far consists of a short about Harry and Ginny's dreams.

Now, I must thank Chinese Miko for the first real review I have received. Not only did she attempt constructive criticism, but she succeeded. Dear Miko, you are very right in that I portrayed Hermione OOC in the first chapter. That is being seen to.

Again, naming suggestions would be welcome.

If you didn't catch the Mary Poppins reference, I'm sad for you. Go read it right away, it's very good. I don't own that as well, but I do own my Cherry Tree Lane, and Melpomene (5 points to anyone who can recognize her name without looking it up on the web).

By the way, Real Word Count (without ANs) is 9328