Out of Time and Memory

This chapter, for some reason, got left out when the story was uploaded. BAH! So, here it is, in it\'s appropiate place. . .


Chapter 10 - In Dreams

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

All of your life now you have denied
There\'d be a time when you\'d ever die
Still it\'s been rumored this thing must be
Why is it then that you act surprised
When I appear now to be your guide
Why do you hesitate to follow me

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The dreams never stopped coming. She’d be at home, in the yard, surrounded by people she loved and that she knew loved her. She was young, and happy, and carefree, secure in the knowledge that she would live an idealistic existence for many years to come. After all, the young never die. . .right?

Then, that would all change. The dream would make a major shift. Shuld uld be surprised, disgusted, and more than a little terrified as she watched the stone statues spring into place, and the figure of a young man, supposedly long gone, rise up before her.

And at this moment in the dream, as it had been in real life two years ago, she knew that sometimes, the young do die.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

See it rising, stare and wonder
Hear it beckon you to dance
Feel it hold you, take you under
I\'m your god of second chance

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

But the dreams never stopped there. She would hear the smooth baritone voice of Tom Marvolo Riddle again and again in her mind. He would beckon her nearer, looking at her with a hunger that, at only eleven years old, she had been unused to seeing from men. She couldn’t refuse his orders, and soon she was standing right in front of him, near enough for him to caress her face. He would tell her that he needed her, that she was a very important little girl. She never got the chance to protest that she wasn’t little, before a feeling, much like drowning, would come over her. She would feel her life being sucked out of her, making Tom real again. She would fight, oh yes, how she fought, but it was never enough, and she would enter that darkness of unconsciousness.

But, again, the dream wouldn’t stop there. She would change perspective, almost as if she were an astral projection of herself. She could see herself lying on the floor of the Chamber of Secrets. She watched as Tom Riddle d ovd over her, basking in the warmth that was her life force. She could see all this, and yet her feet were rooted to the floor, ensuring that she could not move. She could only stand and scream.

Watching herself die.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And now you claim you are not prepared
So much to do you cannot be spared
Still your entreaties death will not hear
The graveyard is filled with important men
Who could not be spared but were in the end
And so I whisper now in your ear

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

“NO!” She would cry. “I’m still so young! I have so much to do! Let me go, you bastard, LET ME GO!” But it was no use. As her fourteen-year-old self screamed, her eleven-year-old self grew paler and yet more still upon the stone floor, her arm still curled about that cursed diary. She knew that she must break through, somehow, make sure that she didn’t die. The fact that she was alive escaped her memory in this dream state, and all that mattered was getting Tom to turn around, to make him stop. He was supposed to care about her, supposed to keep her secrets. That’s what he had said when she wrote in the diary.

And now her was killing her.

She continued screaming as she watched Tom bend down, and brush a tendril of red hair out of her face. A soft tut-tut escaped his lips at he shook his head. “Stop fighting, my dear. You are mine. You will die that I might live. For that, I thank you mightily.”

And her fourteen-year-old dream-self continued screaming, as the world about her grew darker, mirroring the draw on her life in the Chamber. And finally, still hearing herself scream, the world would go completely dark.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

See it rising, stare and wonder
Hear it beckon you to dance
Feel it hold you, take you under
I\'m your god of second chance

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

And she would wake up, sweat drenched, in her own bed. This time, she was home, but often she had awoken in her bed at Hogwarts, glad that she had cast silencing charms on her curtains. Her mother had looked at her oddly when she had asked for silencing charms on her bedroom, but had cast them anyway, with the condition that, as her mother, she be able to remove them when needed. That had taken care of that problem, and no one was aware of the fact that she had screaming nightmares. Harry needed the attention focused on him, to help him get through these terrible times, she didn’t want anyone to bother themselves about her.

And so, with no one popping in to see what she was screaming about, she remembered the nightmare yet again. She had it often, and it was always the same. As her eleven-year-old self seemed to grow smaller, Tom would seem to grow larger, fuller, more colorful. If she squinted, she almost thought she could see tendrils of her purple tinted magic reaching from her body into his. She watched Tom walk around her immobile form, strutting with a sensuous grace, almost as if her were dancing with an unseen partner. The feeling of drowning was still with her, as she watched herself coming closer and closer to death, with no way to fight Tom. She wished that the dream would extend itself, so that she could see Harry coming to her rescue, but it never did.

It was always with these thoughts that she would turn over from her back to her right side, and snuggle closer into bed. She had a second chance at life. It had been hard won, by someone other than her, but it was precious none the less. And there was no in hin hell that she would allow herself to be frightened into submission of the darker forces by a nightmare. They had had their chance with her, and they had lost to Harry Potter. And now, she used her second chance at life, given her by Harry, to fight with him. And that is where she would stay. The only time that Lord Voldemoruld uld ever have her in his grasp again was in dreams.

And Virginia Weasley liked it that way.

~fin~