Disclaimer: I don´t own Harry Potter or its characters.

Chapter 2.- Nightmares and treason.

Charles Potter shifted in his bed, his mind relieving the events of the Triwizard´s Tournament, in which he had participated, and where it all had gone wrong.

"No!" he whispered, and said more loudly. "No, please! Don´t harm him, please!"

Sweet poured from his forehead, sheets glued to his pale skin from the wetness.

"No, Harry, NO!"

He screamed, as he sat on his bed so quickly, that he got dizzy.

Footsteps were heard. The door opened, Lily Potter walking through it. She looked concerned.

"Charles?" she climbed in his bed, and put a hand on his shaking shoulders. She was about to ask if he was alright, but he clearly wasn´t. "What happened? Are the nightmares back?"

Charles nodded his head, his eyes downcast.

Lily put a comforting arm around her younger son, as he sobbed quietly. "Everything is going to be alright." she whispered, soothingly.

Charles looked at her. "How can you be so sure? How could you know? I don´t even know if Night – Harry is dead or not!"

Lily closed her eyes tightly, trying to block the mental image of either of her two sons – dead. All pale, not breathing, and those emerald eyes (so much like hers) unseeing, unblinking.

No, she told herself. Harry is alive. Don´t think like that.

"I'm so sorry, Charles," she said, the mantra still repeating in her head, but the images kept coming. "You are right. I don´t know Harry. I'm sorry!"

Charles looked surprised to see his mum so distraught. As she opened her eyes, her tears were free for him to see. She knew he could see the pain – the remorse – in her eyes.

Charles pieced it all together, as she knew he would.

"Something else happened, didn´t it? With Harry? What really happened, Mum?"

Lily shook her head.

"I'm sorry!"

"Mum, tell me!" Charles practically screamed, and James arrived at the door, worried, just in time to see Lily put her head on her hands.

"I'm sorry, Charles. I didn´t do better. If I had done so, Harry would still live here!" she cried. "I'm sorry."

Charles was, clearly, still confused. Something was wrong! His parents were supposed to hate his twin!

James sat beside Lily. "We didn´t want Harry to run away, Son."

"Then why did you treat him like that?" he asked, angrily.

"We didn´t want to," Lily whispered, so quietly that Charles had to move closer to understand. "he forced us to."

Charles blinked.

"Him? Who is 'he'?"

Lily lifted her head, emerald eyes focusing in the pale brown of her son´s.

"Dumbledore."

Charles felt as if something had hit him. So, all that time, when his brother had been ignored, when he had ran away, when he hadn´t had a home...

...all this time, it had been his mentor, Albus Dumbledore, who had driven his brother away.

He stumbled in his bed, and got stuck in his sheets, falling hard on the floor. His backside hurt, but he ignored it.

'This is impossible!' his mind screamed. Dumbledore wasn´t perfect, but this?

This was much worse, he decided. The worst kind of betrayal.

He wondered, not for the first time, if Voldemort was the only one they needed shelter from.

It was a few months later, that Guinevere Dilard stood court.

Everyone was mortified when they heard she had been the traitor that resulted in Charles and Harry´s abduction. But none more than Sirius Black, whom had had a relationship with her.

It turns out, she had been spying on the children the whole time.

Her story was simple.

She had been an only child, homeschooled, bitter, from the lack of company beside her parents. She hated people with a passion, after all the teasing she had as a child – for not being very wealthy.

So, when Lord Voldemort took her in, she had been glad to help him.

The second Death Eater who was a woman, the first, being Bellatrix Lestrange.

She, as it turned out, was a metamorphmagi, and that had helped her when spying on the Boy – who – lived, and his twin, the Guardian.

She had, also, been the one that had been those pair of eyes that followed the Potter twins everywhere.

Being the one in charge of Charles´s mentoring, it had been only too easy for her to leave a Portkey for Charles, and a Note for Harry; which had him go running for his brother.

Some laughed at the irony of her name.

Guinivere.

As in the wife of King Arthur.

Queen Guinivere – the traitor.

But, at the end, everyone in the Wizengamot had agreed in one thing.

Guinivere Olivia Dilard was guilty of all charges.

She never made it out.

"So," James Potter started to say, "are you ready to go back to Hogwarts?"

Charles, Dean, Seamus, Susan and Hannah nodded; some excitedly, some not. One if the ones who didn´t act very excited was Charles, but, as the events of the last year and his parents confession were still fresh in his mind, the others ignored it. For now.

"I'm really nervous, Mr. Potter!" admitted Hannah, and she did look nervous, but if one looked closely, her eyes were shining with anticipation.

"Why, Hannah?" asked Charles´s mum.

"I just wish they would tell us who is Prefect sooner," the blonde girl suspired.

Dean and Seamus caught each other´s eyes, and shifted a laugh. Charles shook his head as Susan stood up and glared at them.

"You think this is funny? That our friend wants to be a Prefect?" Susan asked, getting angry.

"No, of course not - "

"Then why are you laughing?"

Dean and Seamus shifted guiltily.

"We are sorry, Han. It would be great if you got to be a Prefect."

Charles walked closer to Hannah. "Yeah. Don´t listen to them. They want you to become a Prefect just so that you get them out of tight situations."

Both Hannah and Susan smiled at him gratefully.

"Knowing you, Charles, they will be many of those situations-"

"Please, don´t give him any ideas!" Lily exclaimed, playfully. "That boy gets himself in more trouble than James, and he is an Auror."

They were all hanging out at Charles´s house. Lily and James had even convinced Charles, Dean and Seamus to forgive each others. Charles knew, though, that their friendship was just too damaged to come to be what it was before, but they were trying, and that was really mattered. Either way, The Potters had invited their son´s friend to come to his house on his birthday, to have a small party - something that was different from other years, when they would make a fuss over it.

Charles was happy with what they had made.

His parents had made some kind of pool, that looked more like a small lake than a professional pool. They had placed many toys to play in the pool, like balls, and other kind of things that were underwater, so you had to swim to get it.

Charles´s birthday, the 31th of July, was spent among friends and family - most of it, anyway - playing games and just having fun.

Meanwhile, in another place of England, there was a meeting. Some people arrived at the room, dressed in their normal attires. They were gathering around a single person, who was the leader.

The shadows covered all of their features, making it impossible to know who they were.

The leader suddenly raised his arms, and they all shut down.

"Are all here?" he asked, his voice sounding like one of a teen.

"Yes, Shade," a girl answered, she sounded guilty about something. A boy, at her side shifted as well.

"Something wrong, Ivy, Moon?" Shade asked, feigning concern.

"Well, yes," Moon answered. "This is wrong. We should have waited for Nightmare."

Ivy nodded, pulling her brunette hair out of her braid, like she did when she was nervous.

"Oh, you think so?" Shade sneered. Ivy, Eagle and Moon nodded. "Then maybe you should go with him. He is no longer welcome here. From this day, saying his name is prohibited."

Eagle, Ivy and Moon looked at him, startled, and then Ivy found her voice.

"Don´t you see, Shade?" she asked him. "See in what you´ve become! I can´t even recognise you! Who was the one who helped you - us - from the start, who was here for us always, even when we fought? It was him! It was Night - " Shade glared at her, and she huffed before continuing. "Fine! Harry! It was him who rescued all of us from our pasts, remember? Why want you show some loyalty to that?"

The group didn´t react, And Ivy took a step back, closer to Moon and Eagle.

"You know what? If this is what the Midnights have turned out to be, then I don´t want to be a part of it anymore!" she said, sadly, Moon and Eagle nodding behind her. They were a bit shocked to hear her talk so much, as normally she was much more quiet.

Finally, Eagle started voicing her thoughts. "I am with Ivy. I only stayed so long because of Nightmare, but if he has left, there is nothing more to decide. We are going."

And she, Ivy and Moon turned to the door, and without a second glance, disappeared into the night.

"So," Shade asked, as if nothing had happened. "Where were we?"

And the meeting started, their members extremely quiet, despite Shade´s obvious excitement behind the topic. The one topic that had made them fight in the first place.

Which side to pick?

Were they going to stay light, like Nightmare had wanted?

Or were they going to pick the easier path? The path of darkness?

Author Note:

Okay. Here´s the plan:

I´ll post a new chapter every Tuesday and Friday. I don´t know exactly at which hour, but it will be probably in the evening, not in the morning, as I have school. (This is, of course, not considering that you life in another place, and your hours are not like mine.)

Can you tell who are the Midnights? Well, some of them. The rest are mainly OC´s. But Ivy IS a cannon character, even if she only got mentioned once. And Moon... well, you will see later.

So, did you like this chapter? I'm dying to hear what you think of it! Please, REVIEW, and tell me!

Oh, I forgot, in one of the following chapters, I will describe more about Harry´s and Charles´s birthdays. This was only the explaining.

See you next week!

Lily.