Thank you all for the reviews. I do appreciate all the reviews even the critical ones since that's the only way people can improve.
I have to say I had a lot of trouble writing the previous chapter (chapter 7) so it took a while to get it out. I've also gotten a bit of a plot bunny for a crack fic that sidetracked me for a while. :)
Also, I'm really not super happy with this chapter … it feels ...rushed. It took me months to write it and it feels .. meh.
The next chapter is going to be easier to write and is actually partially written already.
Felicity calls the big bad Freddy Krueger IT'S NOT FREDDY, it's an actual marvel (comics) CANONICAL villain specifically from the Doctor Strange rogues gallery. It's just Felicity making pop culture references.
TRIGGER WARNING. Not going to say what it's about but it should be fairly obvious as you read. Let's just say it gets pretty dark, outside my comfort zone to write normally.
With a soft crack they landed in a pile in their living room.
Harry turned over at the sound of Felicity emptying the contents of her stomach all over the floor.
"What the fuck was that!"
"Apparition." Harry answered handing the girl a conjured glass of water. "It's not the most pleasant of means of travel but this was especially bad since I hadn't ever really practiced side along apparition before."
"It's unpleasantly like being drunk." Felicity replied.
"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?" Harry replied. He had never managed to get blind drunk, unlike the other members of the DA, but had had a few drinks in his last year at Hogwarts and remembered the feeling of light intoxication as being a somewhat pleasant if fleeting sensation.
"Just ask a glass of water." she replied absentmindedly as she steadied herself on the couch.
Harry simply nodded in understanding. Apparition did feel like being sucked up a hose or straw, at least the first few times.
"Check yourself to make sure we didn't leave a limb or other bit back there."
"What?!"
"It's called splinching. If you mess up your apparition, you can end up leaving bits of yourself back where you left." Harry replied as he absentmindedly patted himself down. "Never happened to me and I apparate quite a bit but this is the first time I do a side along so …"
Felicity sat down on couch wearily.
"So … I have … questions."
"You and me both." Harry cut in, dropping heavily into his favorite chair.
"That, thing … that beautiful creature made of light that made the fear and shadow go away. What was it?"
"A Patronus charm. It summons a protector spirit from your magic and your happiness. Let see if I remember the description from the book. A magical guardian, a projection of all your most positive feelings. A guardian which generally takes the shape of the animal with whom they share the deepest affinity. Mine used to look like my dad. He could change into an animal, a stag. But it changed to my familiar Hedwig, she died protecting me from a dark curse."
"Can ... can you summon it again?" Felicity asked.
Harry nodded and focused on a happy memory. "Expecto Patronum!"
Hedwig leapt from Harry's wand and seemed to look around for a threat to face. Not finding one she approached Harry and Felicity.
"Hello old girl! Thanks for the help."
Felicity looked at Hedwig with awe, fear receding further and disappointment apparent in her face as the owl faded away.
"So, what … what happened when you went into Mr. Thompson?"
Harry explained the events that happened within the dream.
"So this guy is basically Freddy Krueger?"
"Who?"
"This really old movie called A Nightmare on Elm Street?"
"Again, pop culture references don't work with me." Harry explained with a shrug.
"He's the main character from a series of horror movies. He's a child murderer who became a demon after he was killed by the neighbours parents. He hunts the kids of his killers in their nightmares."
"Sounds pretty accurate." Harry agreed.
"We'll rent the movies and do some research. Maybe it was inspired by encounters with this Big Bad?"
Harry shrugged noncommittally.
"We should probably inform Mrs. Thompson that she might get a call from the hospital." Harry suggested.
Felicity took out her phone and looked at it in confusion. "My phone is on the fritz."
"Not surprising considering what happened to all the electronics in the hospital. Electronics don't handle magic too well and that fight between Hedwig and whatever that darkness was was pretty intense. Then again, not sure if the phone would have survived the apparition anyway. My phone should still be on my bedside table." Harry offered.
While Felicity left the room to make the call, Harry summoned a notepad and a pen to jot down his observations about the entity he had met. Magical libraries had to start somewhere after all.
Huffing in annoyance at his lack of progress Harry summoned a stone basin on his living room table.
In the pensieve Harry deposited his memories of the earlier events but only of the initial encounter with the creature. Rewatching these memories had yielded some interesting notes. The creature had called him a Sorcerer, perhaps there were other magicals in the world after all.
Adding those notes to his notebook Harry decided he had had enough for the day and deposited a new memory into the stone basin and had it project the memory over the bowl.
Hermione, Ron and he were sitting in front of the fire in the Gryffindor common room the night Harry and Cho had kissed under the mistletoe.
"That's what you look like when you smile?."
Harry turned to see Felicity standing there watching him.
"Yeah. I'd just had my first proper kiss from a girl. Well proper is a strong word, she cried through it leaving me rather confused."
Harry wondered for a few moments, had he not smiled in all this time?
"Mrs. Thompson didn't answer so I left a message. Hospital probably already called her. Who are they?" Felicity asked pointing at the children.
"Hermione and Ron, my two best mates. Well, Ron was a bit of a fair weather friend to be honest but even then, he went through a lot with us. Hermione on the other hand was always true to me." Harry replied wistfully.
"What's with this bowl?"
"It's a Pensieve. It holds memories and lets you look at them again for an external view. It's easier to notice things you would normally miss or find patterns."
They watched the memory unfold culminating with the trio breaking out in laughter.
"Here, let me show you something."
Harry returned the memory to his head and extracted another and dropped it in the pensieve.
"Put your finger in the liquid."
Felicity looked at him with an incredulous look.
"You want me to put my fingers in your magical brain jizz?"
Harry rolled eyes at her in exasperation and gently took her hand in his.
"The first time I used one of these I put my entire face in."
Felicity gave him a disgusted look.
"I'm not really a fan of bukake."
Deciding he probably didn't want to know what that meant he ignored the comment and guided their joined hands into the bowl.
The living room melted away from around them and they found themselves on an old train platform in the middle of the forest. The platform and forest lacked definition, almost as if they were cloaked in silver mist.
"This is crazy! Where the fuck are we? Are we in a memory?"
"The Hogsmeade train station. Just watch. It should become clear in a few moments."
A large red train appeared in the horizon. Its main light cutting through the dark.
As the train approached the surrounding seemed to solidify.
A large shaggy man dressed in a fur trench coat walked up the steps carrying an old style oil lantern.
The train slowed right down and finally stopped. A sea of children poured out of the train and unto the platform.
"Firs' years! Firs' years over here! All right there, Harry?"
Harry look down at himself. He'd forgotten how small and puny he had been at that age. His hair had taken a bit of a style over the years compared to the messy birds nest he had at age eleven.
"Oh my fucking god! That's you! You look so small and scrawny!"
Hagrid's big hairy face beamed over the sea of heads.
"C'mon, follow me - anymore firs' years? Mind yer step, now! Firs' years follow me!"
"Come on. We're following Hagrid." Harry explained as he took Felicity's hand.
They followed Hagrid and the children down a steep, dark, narrow path.
"Ye' all get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec," Hagrid called over his shoulder, "jus' round this bend here."
There was a loud "Oooooh!"
The narrow path had opened suddenly onto the edge of a great black lake.
Perched atop a high mountain on the other side, its windows sparkling in the starry sky, was a vast castle with many turrets and towers.
"Wow! That was your school?"
"That was my home for seven years. This is how I like to remember it, not like it was after the battle seven years later."
They stayed on the shore watching the children slowly glide across the still waters towards the school and the scene faded back to their living room.
Harry drew the memory back from the pensive and returned it to his own mind.
"Forget movies! That was fucking amazing! How are you not spending all your fucking time in here?"
"It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live." Harry replied, quoting Dumbledore.
The next day found Harry and Felicity outside the Thompson's home. They had not heard back from Mrs. Thompson and decided that it would be best to reach out to the woman as she would most likely have questions.
The house was located in one of the more affluent areas of Manhattan. Harry scowled at the Halloween decorations that adorned most of the houses on the street. Halloween had never been a good day for him. Between his parent's murder, the Troll, the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, the day Sirius broke into Hogwarts, the day the stupid Goblet of Fire had chosen him as a fourth champion …Halloween had never been a very happy day for the wizard.
"Her car is here." Felicity pointed out while Harry rang the doorbell.
After a few moments and a few more attempts with the doorbell, Harry pulled out his wand and cast a silent detection spell.
"There's one person in the house on the main floor."
With a tap of his wand, the lock on the front door popped open and Harry let himself into the house.
The house, located in one of the more affluent areas of Manhattan, was well appointed. It was the kind of house the Dursley's would have wanted to live in. High end furniture, what Harry assumed was expensive art on the walls, hardwood flooring … the Thompson's appeared to be very well-to-do.
" ?" Harry cried out as he made his way towards the location his detection spell had indicated. "It's Harry, Harry Potter. We have news about your husband."
There was no answer. Harry still had his wand in hand and nodded to Felicity who pulled out her stolen pistol.
Walking into an elegant living room, Harry found Mrs. Thompson laying on the couch.
"Mrs. Thompson?" Harry asked as he slowly approached the woman who appeared to have fallen asleep on the couch, a small blanket folded under her head used as a pillow.
On the coffee table were some photo albums and a small uniform of some type.
Harry began casting his limited repertoire of medical spells, mostly learned from his repeated visits with Mme. Pomphrey.
"Do you think Kruger got her?" Felicity asked bringing a chair closer to the couch for Harry to use.
The phone began to ring, interrupting Harry's answer.
"Should I answer that?" Felicity asked.
Harry shrugged his shoulders in reply.
"Thompson's residence." Felicity greeted after gingerly lifting the receiver.
"No, Mrs. Thompson isn't available right now. Can I take a message?"
Harry began flipping through the photo album. The album cover was covered in dust and had strange indentations on it as if it had been lying under something heavy for an extended period of time.
"Is Mr. Thompson ok?" Felicity asked after a moment. "I know you can't go into detail but if he's ok I'd rather not have her freaking out for no reason."
The photos inside showed a young girl dressed in a riding uniform riding a horse along with other horse related photos. The photos spanned several years but the album ended abruptly, the last picture showing the girl to be between 14 to 16 years old and there were apparently several pictures recently removed..
"I'll be right back." Harry whispered to Felicity before apparating away with a soft crack returning a minute later with a small notebook.
Dennis Creevey had returned to Hogwarts to resume his magical education after the war and had taken up photography as a way to honour his older brother who had died defending Hogwarts during the last battle. The boy had held no ill will against Harry for his brother's death and had taught him some of the spells and potions involved in his brothers passion.
Flicking his wand at one of the photographs, Harry was able to slightly manipulate the images causing them to animate or zooming into the get more detail or even see things not actually captured by the camera.
"Emily Smyth" Harry read on a scoreboard of a photo of an equestrian competition, the last photo of the album, after enlarging that part of the picture.
Animating the photo slightly Harry observed the then Ms. Smyth's expression changing quickly from a bright smile to a somewhat fearful expression.
"Mr. Thompson woke up for a few minutes earlier. He's asleep again but this time it's normal. That's all the hospital could tell me. How are you doing that?!" Felicity asked, noticing the animated photo.
"Magic." Harry answered absentmindedly. "Looking for clues. She took this album out recently. It's been in storage for a time. There must be a reason."
"Well, Centaurs are basically horses with a human on them right?"
Harry's head snapped up to look at his assistant. "Oh! Damn! I'm pretty bloody dense not to have thought of that! But she's been riding for years apparently, why would she be afraid of a horse and rider now?"
"That's interesting and all but aren't you going to dive in and pull her out?" Felicity asked.
"It's not that simple. I didn't pull out Mr. Thompson, I wouldn't even know where to begin to start to do that. I just made him face his fear and then it broke the … curse I guess or possession or whatever you want to call it."
"Ok so jump in and make her face the centaur. Done deal."
"It's not going to be that easy. Mr. Thompson's fear was easy to face since it was pretty straightforward and he was saved from the fire that burned his parents apartment. I don't really know WHY Mrs. Thompson's nightmare is a centaur. I need more information."
Harry continued flipping through the album when he noticed that some pictures had been removed.
"There are pictures missing. Look around, see if you can find them."
Harry began looking around Mrs. Thompson where she lay while Felicity began searching the room.
"Found something!" Felicity announced carrying a waste basket.
Dumping the contents of the bin revealed several photos that had been crumpled and torn to pieces. A simple repairing charm resulted in more equestrian related photos.
"All the photos have this guy in them." Felicity noticed, pointing out a ruggedly handsome man in his mid 30's that was present in all the previously destroyed photographs.
Harry flipped through the album again and found that no pictures of the man remained.
Harry took the most recent of the discarded photos but began to get frustrated with the limitations of working with normal, non-potion prepared photos.
"Can you zoom in on his shirt in this picture?" Felicity asked handing Harry a solo picture of the man.
The shirt appeared to be a staff shirt for a stable and a nametag identified the man as 'Laurence'.
"I don't think we'll get anything more from this and if she's stuck in a nightmare like her husband …"
"Ok! Get in there and get her out. If you're not out in 10 minutes I'll try and snap you out of it."
Harry nodded back and plunged into the woman's nightmare.
Harry found himself in the dark hedge maze once more. A low rolling fog hugged the ground.
A full moon cast the maze in dark shadows.
Harry picked a random direction and began walking.
A shadowy figure ran past Harry's path further ahead.
"Mrs. Thompson! It's Harry, Harry Potter. I've come to help!" Harry cried out as he ran forward.
There running up ahead was a naked Emily Thompson.
"Mrs. Thompson!" Harry cried out causing the woman to stumble and fall.
As Harry approached her darkened form, she began scrambling backwards in a blind panic as she attempted to cover her naked body.
Harry's silently cast light spell bathed the path in light revealing her scratched, bruised and nude body curled into a protective ball.
"Emily, it's Harry, Harry Potter. I've come to help."
The woman remained silent, shivering on the ground, unresponsive.
"Let's start by giving you back a bit of modesty". Harry offered and with a swish of his wand, he conjured a large cloak.
Feeling the cloak settle over her, the terrified woman finally turned to look at Harry.
"What the bloody hell?" Harry whispered as her face finally came into view. Where her mouth should be was a patch of clear, unmarred skin.
"Mrs. Thompson, what happened to you?" Harry asked as he knelt down by the cowering woman.
"Right, you can't answer. Look, we were able to free your husband. This is your nightmare, you just need to realise that and face your fear." Harry explained but the woman had stopped listening, her terrified eyes staring over Harry's shoulder.
There at the end of the path stood the silhouette of grotesquely deformed centaur a massive turgid member hanging below it's equine body.
Lifting the woman from the ground, Harry urgently guided her down the path.
"Run, I can't fight your fear for you. I can buy you some time but you have to face your fear yourself." Harry explained as he guided the woman forward. A simple transfiguration raising an earthen wall between them and their pursuer.
They turned a corner and entered a clearing that contained apex, horse jumping obstacles.
Harry gently set the woman down and rushed through the clearing to block all three entrances to the with earthen walls.
"Mrs. Thompson, I don't know how long those walls will last. The being that controls these dreams has some power to reshape it to fit it's needs so we need to work quickly."
The woman silently sobbed from her prone position on the ground, covering her shivering form with Harry's conjured cloak.
"Emily, I guess this has to do with your horse riding when you were a girl?" Harry asked.
The woman looked up at him nodding, pain and shame radiating from her eyes.
"I wish you could tell me what happened but obviously you can't unless …"
Harry's thoughts were interrupted when one of his earthen walls shudder under some great impact.
Pulling the woman up off the ground Harry dismissed one of the earthen walls and guided her down the path beyond. They ran quickly down a few twists and turns into another clearing where Harry closed all entrances by forcing the hedges to grow over the gap.
"Let's try something different. Emily, remember in my office when I asked you to focus on the memory of your dream? I need you to focus on the memories that focus on … this."
The woman's expression morphed to incredulous incomprehension.
"I know, this seems insane but you are mouthless in a maze being chased by a demonic centaur … nothing here makes any sense so I'm hoping you can suspend your disbelief and trust me?"
After a moment of hesitation the woman nodded in agreement.
"Ok now focus on your memories, when you are ready, open your eyes and look into my eyes."
The trembling woman closed her eyes taking deep steadying breaths. After a few moments, she opened her eyes staring intently into Harry's.
"Legilimens!"
Harry found himself floating inside the woman's endless black starfield. Unlike his previous foray into his clients mind where she had been relatively calm and collected, memory sphere whizzed by moving at great speed with only a few memories floating fairly still nearby. But even these memories appeared .. skittish, like a frightened hare ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.
Harry approached the nearest sphere and as he slowly reached out to touch it, the sphere shifted away from his hand a short distance.
Harry made a quick snatch at the orb causing all the nearby orbs to fly off in formation like a flock of spooked birds.
"Bugger!" Harry exclaimed into the darkness as he envisioned a broom between his legs and shot off after the spheres.
Chasing through the vast expanse of the woman's mindscape was very different than chasing a snitch in a Quidditch match. There was no air and so no wind, no sense of direction such as up or down, no gravity… even the projection of a broom lacked the feel and interaction of a real broom and was simply the manifestation of Harry's will..
The only real challenge of course was a time constraint. Harry was uncertain how time flowed inside the memories of a dream and there was no telling when they would be found by either the god like being that ruled over this dream realm or the manifestation of his clients fear.
The one saving grace was that the memories Harry wanted to see were apparently the only ones fleeing from him making it obvious what memories were important.
After a short chase, Harry reached one of the memories and he was pulled into it as his fingers skimmed it's surface.
Harry suddenly found himself on horseback riding towards some stables. It was a sunny summer day and his host and the horse she rode, were drenched in sweat. As they neared the stables, Emily Smith gracefully dismounted and guided her horse to it's pen.
Removing the horse's saddle and tack along with her own vest and hat, the young girl began to cool down the horse with a wet rag from a pail cooling the beasts tired muscles.
"You did pretty good back there Emily."
The girl turned around suddenly dropping the cloth.
"Thank you Mr. Laurence." the girl replied hesitantly as she backed away from the man blocking the gate out of the stall.
The man approached, his eyes cleary undressing the young woman in front of him.
The girl looked down at her chest, noticing that the water she had been applying to her horse had drenched her shirt, making it transparent.
"I should finish taking care of Stormy." the girl explained as she made to pass by the instructor but was blocked by the man in question.
"It can wait a sec, you seem to have gotten yourself all wet." he said licking his lips slowly. "Maybe you should take off those clothes before they get ruined."
The memory seemed to glitch severely at this point, as if Mrs. Thompson had repressed it even further and resumed with the man standing over the girl, buttoning up his pants while she sobbed helplessly, nude at the back of the stall.
"If you say a word about this to anyone there might be a small accident in store for Stormy over here. You do know what they do with race horses and competition horses that have had a broken leg?" The man asked as he left the stall.
The girl crawled over to her horse, hugging it, sobbing as the memory slowly ended.
Harry extracted himself from the woman's mind to find her on her knees crying softly, her head lowered. At the entrance of the clearing stood the centaur but it looked less demonic and it's features could be more clearly seen. The human portion of the centaur was in the image of Mrs. Thompson's assailant.
You don't have to be afraid anymore Mrs. Thompson. You're not that defenceless little girl who can't defend herself anymore. You are a grown woman with a loving husband and this predator isn't some mythical monster. He's just a sick, cowardly, depraved man who can't hurt you anymore. You don't have to stay quiet about this anymore Emily, he has no power over you. Say it, say it with me.
Suddenly the skin covering the womans mouth ripped and a primal scream burst forth shaking the entire dreamscape.
"THE BASTARD DOESN'T CONTROL ME ANYMORE!".
And with that scream, the dream shattered and Harry found himself once more sitting on the floor.
"Did it work?"
Harry looked up to Felicity but before he could answer Mrs. Thompson awoke crying.
"Yeah, it worked. I think it'd be best if I wasn't here. Take care of her and come back to the office when she's calmed down."
Before stepping into the hallway Harry stopped and turned back to Felicity.
"Find out what you can about him … I want to find him." Harry added, pointing to the pictures strewn about the table.
With that Harry walked out of sight of the two women and disapparated with a soft crack, re-appearing in his apartment.
Felicity found him in the darkened living room sipping some firewhiskey, Harry handed her a small glass and both sat in silence.
It had taken a few days but Felicity, with information from Mrs. Thompson, had tracked down the woman's aggressor.
And so Harry stood on a cloudy day in a cemetery in a small town just outside New York looking down at a gravestone.
"How did he die?"
Harry turned to his companion, Mrs. Thompson's expression was closed off.
"Felicity found his obituary, he died in a motorcycle accident."
The woman simply nodded.
They remained in silence for a few moments, listening to the local sounds of birds, children playing in a park not too far away…
"I'd worked out what I wanted to tell him you know. I was going to confront him, make him understand what he'd done to me … but I guess this is about as much closure as I'm going to get."
Harry remained silent for a few moments, his hands toying with a box in his pocket.
"I figured that might be the case … I might have something. I don't like doing this because it can be addictive and it can also be unpleasant."
"What, you can perform a seance?" The woman asked, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips.
"Sort of. I can call him, here. Force him to appear to us … if you want."
The woman turned to him in surprise.
"I … I can see why you wouldn't want to use this power needlessly. Being able to call your loved ones from beyond the grave could be … addictive as you said. On the other hand, the old adage of 'Dead men tell no tales' doesn't really apply to you now does it?"
"My old headmaster … er principal I guess you would call him here ... once told me 'It does not do to dwell on dreams and forget to live'."
They stood in silence for a little longer.
"Could you … could you call him please?"
Harry pulled out the box containing Resurrection Stone and turning it in his hands 3 times whispered the name of his clients aggressor.
Suddenly, standing there by his tombstone was a ghostly apparition.
"Why did you bring me here?" the spirit asked looking slightly confused.
"You are here to face one of your victims." Harry replied.
"She's too old for my tastes" the spirit leered at Mr.s Thompson.
"You've been dead for a long time. You don't remember her?" Harry asked.
"I've had so many sweet little things over my life. It's hard to keep them straight at this point." the spirit answered with a shrug.
Harry shook his head in disgust.
"Do you have anything you want to tell him or ask him Emily?"
"Emily?! Oh I remember you! You were my first. You always remember your first." The man interrupted, his expression changing from bored disinterest to lecherous ecstasy.
"Why?! Why did you do this to me?" Emily asked in a quiet voice.
"Why do you think you stupid bitch. There you were all hot and wet! Just begging for a nice fat cock!"
"You're a monster" she spat back at him.
"You know, you could have stopped me. All you had to do is speak up … tell an adult and all those other little girls would have been safe." the man explained an evil smirk on his face seeing the look of horror on the woman's face.
"All those tears, all that begging … you could have stopped it you know." He laughed evilly. "But no! Instead, you decided to save a fucking horse!"
"All right that's enough." Harry whispered as he dismissed the spirit.
"This … didn;t turn out how I thought it would." Mrs. Thompson whispered after a moment of silence.
"He was a monster." Harry agreed.
"You've done a great service for my husband and I. Here is your payment and this might also be useful to you. We have some invitations to a rather high profile event but Howard won't be in any condition to attend."
She reached into her purse and drew an envelope, handing it over to Harry.
"It would be a good chance for you to network with some influential new yorkers. Get your name known by some of the elite or at the very least get an amazing meal."
After Mrs. Thompson had left, Harry opened the party invitation she had left.
The invitations were for a party being held by a company called Stark Enterprises.