I had a lot of fun doing this chapter :) hope you enjoy - sorry it's a bit short

To Dream

Lara and Alex

We thought as one here. There wasn't a 'You' and 'Me' because for all we knew 'I' was 'You' and 'You' were 'Me'. We shared thoughts and bodies; we moved as one together each controlling both. It made no sense, of course, but it was a dream – it didn't have to. What we as one were certain of is that out there in the world of reality there was a pair of twins dreaming the same dream.

We walked down a corridor of our dreams. It was completely silent. All around the shadows came to our feet, their light fingers brushing the bare soles that padded, glided really, down the neither cold nor warm stone. The world had no colour, just black, white and grey, monochrome and bleak. However it was not without life. It was like walking through a forest; all is quiet and you cannot see a single living breathing thing but you know that the place is teaming with life. You know that under your feet insects hide, that in the trees birds watch and in the shadows many things lurk. It was like that.

And yet it was just a corridor.

The ceiling curved into arches and to our left large windows opened out onto a landscape dark with night. All through the sky stars bloomed and they whispered to us in lulling tones of a language long forgone for even the mountains never knew their tune. High in the air the moon shone as full as an unopened bottle and as mystic as everything else here in our dream.

We, my sister, my brother, us, turned a corner we hadn't seen coming. It was just there, like everything else was here. In front of us was a door which swung open as we thought to open it. Inside was a room, as expected.

It suddenly became to clear to us that this room was in the very castle we slept in. How it was we came to that concluding was not really know to us, it was just a fact. Walking into the room we saw more arches and more windows and cutting through the middle pillars rose from the stone like proud figures. On a platform beyond the columns a mirror shimmered. The surface seemed to ripple like the gentle wrinkles on a lake, expanding and meeting in circles. However, the strangest thing was the magic that seemed to pulse in the air around it, almost visible (or is it invisible?) to our not-quite-real eyes. There were tiny threads that reached from the mirrors surface, they were searching for something to cling onto, we could tell. But it did not worry us.

It was tall and ornately framed in what was sure to be bronze of perhaps even gold. Above it words glimmered 'Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi'. They didn't really make sense but compared to everything else in this world, well, let's just say it didn't bother us. Approaching it with our four, maybe two, feet we came to stand before it. Inside we saw two figures, us. We felt the magic attach itself to us, to our hearts more precisely. Or was it just to one heart? Inside the mirror an image wove itself from the taste of our dreams around our reflection.

We saw two images, at the same time, in the same surface. Neither was that different but both touched us to our separate cores. It was not difficult to put one image to one twin and the other to the other. Although we did not know who I, you, actually was out of those two possibilities, and vice versa. Longing washed through us, one for one, one for the other; or both of us as you might say. We saw what we most wanted and we found it was not jewels or gold.

Then the world swirled around us, mirror and all – even us, the colours blending together to make just a simple, neither dark nor light, grey which we burst out of. We awoke.

Lara

I awoke and I was me, just me. I wasn't Alex as well, though I could feel him thinking the same thing: morning by the way! I called to him absently.

Morning to you too.

It wasn't the first time we'd had a duel dream, this was our third that we could remember. But that didn't mean it was just as shocking as the other times.

But what a dream this time!

Usually they were pretty out of the ordinary but a mirror that showed your greatest desire? And as ever it was so clear that I always felt that it was real after, as if somewhere out there, perhaps in this very school, there was a mirror of Erised. Every detail was vivid in my thoughts.

I looked into the mirror and I saw myself with a blissfully peaceful expression, though not just me. At my feet, sitting on the floor with a radiant smile was a child. She was about four years old and she had long, what I assumed to be silver, hair – just like mine. I felt tears well to the surface as I saw my daughter, for I knew she was mine. Her eyes had sparkled with joy as she looked out at me and I had recognised them instantly, even in their grey scale setting. I knew what colour they would glisten in, I knew that they would shimmer with fairy dust. Furthermore, I knew that smile; I had stared at it so many times. Yes, it was on a younger and feminine face but it was the same. Behind me had stood a man with a loving face and one arm wrapped around my waist. He hadn't look out of the mirror, just looked at my reflection. He was just as scarred here as he was in the really world and I could see the patters of white lines over his face, hands and neck. My werewolf.

Alex had been there too, for he would always be in my life, but he had been slightly apart and grinning widely.

Was this my greatest desire? I had never thought much about having a family when I left school but after seeing that image, my daughter, I found sharp desire race through me. And those eyes brought it all back. Blue as the sky and flecked with gold. She had been so beautiful…

But no! I was only sixteen! I didn't need to worry about this yet! Perhaps one day I would look down on my real child but not yet. Not yet. I told myself sternly.

The world was awakening around me. In Alex's dorm the boys, returned from their nightly wanderings, were stumbling out of bed. Getting ready for class. Lily and the others were doing the same around me and reluctantly I pushed out of bed.

I got up and stretched, feeling clicks travel up my back. The air was clear and yet it seemed to cling to my throat. I needed a shower. I walked to the bathroom in a daze and quickly pulled off my night dress, shivering at the sudden cold. I stepped into the shower and relished in the feel of the steaming water pounding on my back. I could taste the magic that heated the water on my tongue and it was sweet. I washed my hair with my vanilla scented shampoo and watching lazily as the water dripped off my hair next to my waist. Stepping out I quickly dried myself with a quick spell and pulled on my uniform.

I wonder if Remus will come to class. I doubt it; he's probably resting in the hospital wing. I felt a twinge of regret that I couldn't go see him. I didn't have any worries about him being a werewolf anymore. It was just a fact about him and it had been one of the things that had shaped him into the person he was now. The person I loved. In the mirror he had still been a werewolf, if the scars were anything to go by.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and my eyes sparkled at me. Everything was good. I terrified of the prospect of tell Remus I loved him but at least I'd know then where I stood with him. I was in love and I had amazing friends and an amazing brother. Things were good.

Alex

I awoke and I was me, just me. I wasn't Lara as well, though I could feel her thinking the same thing: morning by the way! She called to me absently.

Morning to you too.

My friends were beginning to wake around me, their sleep dodged brains forcing themselves into submission. I looked to my left and found myself blushing at the sight of Siri wearing little more than boxers. I looked away quickly before he recovered from his yawn and saw me looking.

But his image followed me. In the mirror. Him. My greatest desire, really? Okay, so I was in love with him but was there not something, anything, which I wanted more like I don't know… world peace? No, I was just as selfish as every other human and I really could not bring to mind anything I wanted more. To be loved.

I got out of bed, my back facing resolutely away from the subject of my thoughts.

Peter was looking at me with a quirky smirk that looked a tiny bit strange on his face.

"What?" I said irritate.

"Nothing" He replied with a small smile and turning away. How weird.

I looked around at my friends and tried to stop myself from laughing, as it was I think a chuckle did escape my lips. They were all tripping over their feet and I watching amused as James tried to figure out why his left shoe wasn't going on his right foot. Peter stared confused at the two free button holes at the end of his shirt and the certain lack of buttons to use on them. Funniest was the flailing form of Siri, who was currently trying to force his head through the arm hole of his T-shirt. This would not do at all, I thought to myself. I quickly walked forward, passed James his other shoe and gently moved Sirius' head into the right direction. Peter would have to figure out what he did wrong on his own.

Sirius' sleepy head popped out of his top and looked at me with a red, slightly bemused face. I sent him a small smile that I hoped didn't give too much away. His dark eyes held mine though and I couldn't seem to pull away. They were curious as they looked at mine and his handsome face was almost painful to look at. I gulped and stepped back, tearing my eyes off him.

Lily

Remus came back from 'his parents' just after lunch during Transfiguration and I saw Lara visibly perk up. Remus' eyes zapped to hers almost instantly and he smiled. It was all very confusing; yesterday Lara had been determinedly trying to ignore him or at least she was tense the whole time they had sat together and now... Now was the complete opposite. She seemed to glow just looking at him and her eyes were wide and filled with so much love I began to wonder if Remus really was blind. Although now that I came to think of it I could say the same about various other people in this room – Lara included.

Behind us I could hear the Marauders, Remus joined them, plainly not doing their work on the back table. There you could find another blind couple – Black and Alex – who seemed even more clueless of each other than Lara and Remus. It was the funniest thing to see them looking at each other out of the corner of their eyes, look away with a blush or in Black's case a very confused expression. Merlin I wasn't sure if he even understood his own feelings – never mind seeing that Alex felt exactly the same.

And as for me? The debate about whether or not Ja – um - Potter liked me or not was still ongoing. And don't even get me started on whether I could in any way like him. It was just too perplexing. He still hadn't refrained from asking me out once every single day (if not more), nor had the supply of love letters diminished and Lara still sent me the occasional 'so when you gonna say yes?' look and I still pushed the annoying prat away. In fact he seemed to have become even more enthusiastic and annoying, if that were possible. But...

Sometimes I caught myself looking at him across the common room just sitting chatting with his friends. I loved catching the moments when he wasn't smirking and just smiling or laughing at some joke. I found myself wondering what his hair would feel like or what it would be like if he actually looked at me normally.

Ahhh, the tangled love lives of too many teenagers trapped in a castle for too many months. Bless.

Lara

I was in the library, pouring over a detailed text about runes found in South Africa. However I was pulled away from the dense book by somebody clearing their throat next to me. Looking up my eyes widened at seeing Sirius' brother, Regulus.

"May I sit here?" he asked smoothly indicating the seat opposite me.

I nodded slowly and he sat, never taking his eyes off me. My brain was whizzing through all the different possibilities for him being here but I found nothing. His own thoughts were shielded, though he wasn't the best Occlumen and I could sense his wobbly wall fraying at the edges. I shivered, remembering the last time we had met. He hadn't been nearly as civilized that time. In fact he had been downright rude the way his eyes had trailed over me and that disgusting twitch of his eye brows.

"What do you want" I said bluntly and he chuckled.

"Straight forward aren't you?"

"Yes. What are you going to do about it?" I retorted.

I had heard a lot about this Black. Sirius had ranted for a long time after seeing him with Irvine. I knew all about how he was, to quote: 'Cowardly. Doesn't stand up for himself. Blindly follows mother's beck and call. Thinking he's big'. How much I was supposed to believe I had yet to find out.

"Well even if I wanted to do anything about it I wouldn't, nor do I think there would be any way to change it" He said with his strange easy smile.

He was side stepping my question.

"Well that's good because I don't like people who try to change me. Nor do I like people who avoid my question" I said pointedly "Either get to the point or leave"

His smile didn't break for a moment but I felt his shaking wall waver.

"I simply wanted to talk"

I frowned. At least he told the truth, but why did he wish to talk to me. I didn't like this one bit.

"So talk"

He sighed, his carefree manner finally breaking a little.

"You don't make it easy you know Larissa"

I chocked at hearing my name, my non shortened name, on his lips. Hardly anyone called me that, aside from my parents and the teachers.

"Well I don't want it to be easy Regulus" I bit back.

Silence. It took all my will power not to get up and leave like I wanted to. It felt like giving up if I did that, forfeiting and consequently was out of the question. I was here first and I was going to stay right here.

"Why does Darien dislike you?"

I blinked at the unexpected question.

"Dislike me? Good question I have been wondering that myself. I personally believe it's because he is too cowardly to do anything else. Besides he has nothing to gain from liking us" I said, giving an honest answer for once.

"I don't understand..."

I sighed. Remind me again why I was explaining?

"Well seeing as I hate him and so does my brother, liking us would serve no purpose but make him guilty"

He nodded, though he still looked confused and I was still suspicious.

"Why do you want to know?" I said slowly.

He pulled on a cocky smile that was so much like Sirius' that I nearly did a double take.

"Because you're smart and interesting, not to mention sexy, and I wouldn't mind getting to know you"

I blinked again. Suddenly, I felt it, an edge to his thoughts that made me chuckle; I cocked my head to the side and eyed him.

"Ohh, I see. You're flirting, how sweet. You know you're not too bad yourself, however, and I really do hate to break it to you, but I am really not interested." I said cheerily and perhaps in a slightly condescending voice but let's face it, he really did deserve it.

I then watching in amusement as his face went red and his thought, now very much visible, tangled around each other. He seemed to splutter for something to say and I thought it looked rather cute. Little Reggy bit more that he can chew.

Then something stopped me in my tracks. I hint of thought, hit me, hard.

I have to marry her!

What. Did. That. Mean?

Marry? Marry him? He thinks he's going to marry me? Ha, I'd like to see him try and propose to me! How did he manage to get it into his disillusioned mind that I would ever ever say yes! Ha! Nevertheless he sounded so sure... what did that mean? Why would he be sure? Not unless – No way! Uh uh, I was not going to be forced to marry Sirius' brother! Eeeew!

What possessed my father to think I would ever agree to this...unless he didn't plan to tell me till too late? Great! Now I had even more to look forward to this Christmas! As if likely torture wasn't already on the menu I now had forced engagement to prepare for.

Regulus Black (eeww) was still spluttering. I, however, was beyond rage and I think he began to notice my expression because a startled one landed on his.

"Now you listen here Mr. Black because I am only going to say this once" I said in a low and dangerous voice "There is no way, no way, that I will ever consent to marry you so you had best get that idea right out of your feathered head right now"

How – how did you know?" He whispered his dark eyes wide.

I smirked.

"You need to practice Occlemency" I said before getting up and walking away, in what I hoped to be a dramatic manner.