A/N: Finally, round four complete. Had a very hard time coming up with an idea, and I debated separating it because it's relation to "waiting" is extremely vague…however, it is there so I left it in. Enjoy.

The Vigilant Night

Scene 4

The stream seemed to giggle as it flowed into the lake. The light breeze breathed whispers into listening ears, telling quiet tales of the past. Its appearance was majestic: sparkling flashes of beautiful blues and greens. The water was the clearest and purest for hundreds of miles. It was an allure that drew the humans and animals within hundreds of miles to the substance.

A young boy stood its edge: a figure glaringly bright and sharp amidst the water-coloured canvas he was pressed against. Out of place in the gentle nature, he gave off the impression of a stark lamp having been flicked on in the midst of a dim romance, complete with its barely seeing scented candles, tiny moth flames dancing in the darkness like an alluring charm. The child could not be older than ten – it was doubtful that he had gone beyond eight, but his eyes made it difficult to gauge an exact age. The thing that could be best surmised was that he was, in effect, ruining the image.

Perhaps he realised it, because his face tightened while taking in the view, but he made no move to rectify the situation, or indeed draw closer. Ghosts wandered around him, shadows with no face and name fleeting towards the beautiful water calling the children into her embrace; humans or animals, dead or alive, they all flocked to her. Will seemed to be of no consequence; every face wore the same ethereal beauty, the raptured joy that could be diluted with nothing the imperfect earth had to offer.

His face however did not change. Nor did his heart become full with the glistening sun that shone from both the ground and the sky. The flaming orb hung low, his image copied to perfection in the water far below…and yet, it was not so far as his hands reached out to caress the gentle ripples from the giggling stream.

The rays abstained from touching the boy, even as every other guest of Heaven felt his caresses. It too could feel the marring of their perfect world, the wrongness with the image.

The boy did not care. His eyes remained locked on the pure water.

For a long moment, he did not move. He was far enough to savour only a glimpse, a black ink-stain on a faded canvas – until he finally took a step, childish curiosity seizing his soul. It was an emotion that little plagued him – the world was not a place in which there existed much to offer him – but when it did, he seldom saw reason to restrain it. The first step was fluidly followed by a second one, and then a third –

And the water stilled. The people stopped. The sun withdrew its warming touch, leaving a slight chill to waft through the air and the miniscule breeze to resemble a banshee in volume before it too froze.

He stopped for a moment, face impassive. The canvas stared back at him, utterly frozen. Anger welled from within.

'What are you,' he sneered, a hint of bitterness and pain lacing his tone and far more buried deep within his soul. 'To deny me what I want?'

The world trembled. 'Don't come!' it seemed to cry in reply; no gender could be assigned to a combination that existed in such fragile balance. 'Don't come any closer!'

The boy ignored the world, taking an extra step. It began to move again; the animals fled as if the Devil itself were after them, hooves and claws ripping through the pale green slivers of grass and faded leaves. The people followed with no less grace, shoes of all sorts digging into the rusted earth. The wind curled with the tallest branches of faraway trees. The sun withdrew higher, to his safe-haven behind the clouds that promised a storming retribution. The boy ignored the darkening sky, the face of thunder, as the small steps of confidence brought him closer to the edge.

Only the water remained. Pure. Unblemished. Untouched.

The cold face stared down at her, expression hard. She no longer glimmered with a gently lit wicker of flame, nor did her sparkling depths hold anything of consequence for him. The water remained ad clear as it had been from the distance; a diamond with no value save the chaste lustre it perpetually possessed.

'Stay – stay away!'

But the whisper was already fading with hopelessness, dying with a surrendered despair. He took a step closer, then another, and then a few more. He walked forward until the earth dipped away from him, little clumps of dirt crumbling and falling onto the smooth mirror-like surface below. For a moment they marred the insatiable beauty, but then the little grains sunk like the sands of time, leaving the eternal face as it had always been.

Except now it was cold. And empty. A frozen beauty.

Not that it really mattered to him.

He took another step forward and his boot plunged into the cool medium and into the depths that, while having lost her seducing flare, still held his curiousity – or rather, that was the event that should have occurred. For some reason or other, his foot hit something solid. Something unbreakable.

He stepped forward so both boots treaded water – or did not. Instead, they seemed to stride upon an invisible barrier that separated the two words.

'Go away.'

The boy scowled. 'Don't tell me,' he began. 'What to do!' His voice rose at the last word, and the foot came down upon the barrier in a temper. The whole world shruddered; there was screaming in the distance. But the water remained. Still. Pure. Unreachable.

'You cannot come here…'

The voice was soft, barely a trickle in the powerless breeze. Insignificant by all accounts except it was denying him that water it gave so graciously to all else: little insects, utterly useless, unimportant – and it ignored him.

'You cannot come here…'

He gritted his teeth, face slowly dripping into an expression of controlled fury. Power rose within him: a snake poised, ready to snap –

The water simply stared back, her face impassive.

Power exploded. There was a load crack as it crashed into something solid, smaller shrieks as it grabbled with some unknown entity –

'You cannot come here…'

The snake reared back and struck again, fangs failing to penetrate.

'Because your soul is too sick…'

The world began to fade. The distant trees vanished. His head lightened; other things came into being: sounds, rough feelings – the orphanage. Laughing children. Screaming children. Crying children. Foolish children.

The scowl took up permanent residence on his face. The water remained, its face forever frozen beneath his feet.

Or so it seemed, but before the darkness washed it out, he heard the sound of giggling again.

'I'll be waiting…till you get better…'

How dare this thing insinuate –

'Tom..?'

'...Harry?'

And Harry suddenly found himself awake and staring blankly at his friends, unable to make heads nor tails of his dream…or vision. For when Voldermort, past or present, was concerned, there was no such thing as a simple dream.

Word count: 1166