Disclaimer: No characters, place, names, quotes or anything belong to me, they belong to JKR, Warner Bros and various publishing house. I'm a poor penniless student but I'm not making any money from this :P

Author's note: This is a fairly random piece I cooked up when I was supposed to be doing my philosophy homework :P It's all from Harry's POV… and that's all I can think of to say…

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Somnio

By

Christine aka Piglitgirl

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Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone

from T S Elliot's The Hollow Man

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I know that this is a dream. I know that in reality I am lying in my bed, in my dormitory, hangings securely shut. The only sound is Neville snoring, a sound we've all got used to. I know that I am hovering on the border between sleep and waking, but I cannot force myself properly awake. I never can.

I'm at The Burrow. The Weasleys must be having some sort of garden party: I can hear people laughing and talking out the back, can see Dr Filibuster's Fabulous No-Heat, Wet Start Fireworks being let off.

I go round the side of the house to the back. There are balloons and picnic tables strewn about, and so many people. The Weasleys must have invited everyone they knew. I see Hermione and Ron and their parents talking underneath a tree, smiling and laughing. I can even see Sirius and Professor Lupin talking to a couple I don't recognise at first.

And then I realise. Because I always think about this couple. They have saved me more times than they will ever know, and yet I know so little about them.

They turn towards me and smile. The woman comes over and hugs me. I can't breathe. She feels so real. I can feel the clasps on her robes digging into my chest, her cheek pressed against mine. The scent of flowers and soap clings to her, and so do I. Mother.

The man comes up to us, grinning, and claps me on the back. His hands are stained with black. It could be motorbike grease or newspaper print. I can smell broomstick polish, the same type that I use. His robes must be saturated in the stuff.

It occurs to me that this is the perfect time to find out more about them, instead of trying to piece scraps of information together, from different and incomplete sources. Straight from the horse's mouth, you could say. I want to ask stupid things, like what Quidditch team they support, what broomstick my dad flies, what my grandparents' names are, but I can't decide what to ask first.

Sirius and Lupin come up to us and Sirius says something like "The Marauders are reunited!". I hear a sneeze behind me, and I turn around. Wormtail. They all greet him like an old friend, which I suppose he is. I try to say that he is a traitor, that he will betray them all but they laugh. Silly paranoid Harry they say, smiling indulgently.

Wormtail grabs hold of my arm and pulls me away. For some reason, I can't resist and my feet drag me after him. I twist round, trying to get a last glimpse of my family. They are all watching me go, no longer smiling, my mum crying. Dad puts his arm around her, and Sirius and Lupin turn into dog and werewolf respectively. They start howling and moaning.

Then the Weasleys garden fades into darkness, and I'm standing in the middle of a field with Wormtail. He lets go of my arm, sinks to the ground and starts kissing my robes, murmuring "my lord, master" over and over.

I kick him off, spitting. I'm not him.

He looks at me blankly. You are. You must be.

What? I say and then, somewhat stupidly, I can't be, I'm in Gryffindor!

But the Sorting Hat wanted you in Slytherin, didn't it, he says rising to his feet. His face starts to change, like it's melting into someone else's.

Parselmouth. A certain disregard for the rules. There's talent, oh my goodness, yes. Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness.

Stop it, I say. Shut up.

But his whole body has started changing now and even his voice is echoing and cracking so much I can't understand what he's saying.

He's changed. He's not Wormtail. He's a 16 year old boy with dark hair and cold, hungry eyes. He pulls out his wand. I shut my eyes.

There is nothing special about you at all.

I hear the swish of a wand and a sharp crack and flash of green light. I stumble backwards and fall over. When I open my eyes the first thing I see is a clear blue sky. I've never seen anything so pure and unbroken. Absurdly I think, Perfect Quidditch weather.

The sky is broken open by a flock of tiny multicoloured birds, glinting and tinkling like keys on a key chain. The flock splits into red, yellow, blue, and they flit through the air, occasionally making as if to dive-bomb me but change their minds at the last moment.

I get up and see I'm on the outskirts of a maze, with tall green hedges that twist up twice the height of Ron. I enter it although I know this is probably a foolish idea.

I walk through its thick darkness, not paying much attention to which way I'm turning. I round a corner and smell it before I see it. A troll. I pull out my wand but before I can consider what spell to use Ron and Hermione jump out of the hedges either side of me and start pelting the troll with taps and broken pipes.

Run Harry, we've got it! cries Hermione, eyes fixed on the troll, bellowing in anger.

What -? I begin.

Harry, move! shouts Ron.

But –

They both turn around and throw taps at me. I duck and run.

I don't know how long I run for, but the troll's rants soon start to fade and then stops so abruptly that I do too. I hear a rustle behind me and whip round. Perched on a stool is a large purple turban. It does not sing, only hisses and whispers. I think that it's speaking in Parseltongue but I can't tell with no one else's reaction to it.

You would have been great in Slytherin… Strange likenesses between us, Harry Potter. Even you must have noticed. Both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles…

Before I quite know what I'm doing, I've pulled the wand from my pocket and shouted Reducto! There's a blast but I can still hear the turban.

…Probably the only two Parselmouths to come to Hogwarts since the great Slytherin himself. We even look something alike…

I run on, hands clamped over ears.

There is the sound of galloping hooves on the other side of the right hand hedge. There must be a parallel path. I think I can see something pearly white through the twigs when the hedge bursts open. A great white stag leaps through it, nearly knocking me down. It runs on ahead of me and takes a left. I instinctively follow it.

I can see the centre of the maze now. It's a big garden, with apple trees and Jasmine grooves intertwining with each other. I can't name half the flowers there but I do know two of them. Lily and Petunia.

The stag stops at the garden's entrance and turns to me, lowering its antlers. I step forward, towards it, but it pushes me back. I try again and again to side step it but it just won't let me pass. It appears to get bored of the game because it suddenly rushes at me. I dive to the ground, and the stag leaps right over me and gets lost in the gloom of the maze. I scramble into the garden and can hear the most beautiful music. The sound of hope.

In the centre of the garden is a marble plinth. Fawkes is sitting on it, singing. Sitting underneath it is Cedric Diggory, a bundle of rags at his feet. Strangely enough, he's smiling and singing along to Fawkes' song. I think I can hear other human voices singing too, and they make the song chilling and awful to listen to. I turn to Cedric.

I'm sorry, I say. It's all my fault. I'm so sorry.

He shakes his head, still singing. He motions me over, like he has a secret to tell me. I lean in close to him.

Quick as a flash, he pulls a great silver sword with large red rubies set in the hilt from the bundle and slices upwards at me. My right hand falls to the ground. I fall to my knees and watch my severed hand writhe and twist like some grotesque parody of a Muggle horror film.

With one final extra-complicated wriggle and a pop it becomes something the size of a human child. Something hairless and scaly looking, a dark, raw, reddish black, like something you'd find under a stone, but a hundred times worse. It opens its red eyes and gives a burst of cold, high-pitched laughter –

I sit up. I'm in my bed, in my dormitory, hangings securely shut. The only sound is Neville snoring, a sound we're all used to. It was a dream. I'm safe. I lie back down, shaking.

You must understand, I'm used to bad dreams. I can cope with them because I've already faced the worst of it, and they can't really hurt me anymore.

But this dream nags at me. For many reasons. Not just the fact that my hand turns into Voldemort's less-than body, or that I keep being told that I'm the Dark Lord. They weren't the worst part of it.

It was the Weasleys back garden and the man with black-stained hands and the woman who smelt like flowers and soap that haunts me the most. Because I haven't really experienced that, and I never will. I don't usually dwell on this fact. I can't bring them back. And yet –

I look at my hands. They're still stained with black ink from doing homework late into the night. I can smell broomstick polish from when I stopped working to buff my Firebolt.

And underneath all that, for the first time, I think I catch a whiff of flowers and soap. I've never noticed it before, but I suppose that's because you never notice something that's been a part of you since you can remember, like an arm or a leg or even a curse scar. Something so intrinsically part of you, you don't see it until someone points it out to you.

I wonder if it isn't just some lingering vestige of the dream. I pull back the hangings, suddenly needing to know. I'm about to ask Ron but stop, realising how odd and stupid it would sound.

Sorry to wake you up, Ron, but look. Smell my hands, my skin. Beneath the polish and ink, what can you smell? Flowers? Soap? A love so deep, it will linger forever. Can you smell it?

I lie back down. I don't need to ask Ron or anybody. I think I already know. I can still remember Dumbledore's words.

…love as powerful as your mother's for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.

Invisible but still there. I am marked by something. It blooms, everlasting, never dying.

My mother. My father.

Parents.

Strangers.

Protectors.

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