Isolation

Ok so when is Said I was going to update soon I actually meant nearly a year later. I'm so sorry that it's taken me this long to update! I had severe writer's block and just couldn't quite bring myself to finish this off. I would suggest going back and reading the whole story again if you were one of the original readers otherwise this probably won't make much sense.

I'm a bit worried this might be a slightly unsatisfying ending for many of you. It's all rather dreamy really but then that's what I aimed to do with the whole story. once again your kind reviews (and con crit!) are all very welcome.

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When Harry sleeps next to Tom it is with a deep lethargic contentment and he almost never dreams. When he does dream it was always of Tom; his morning smile, the furrow that creeps between his brows when he is thinking too hard, the intense devoted look in his eyes as he thrusts into Harry. Tom is Harry’s waking world and so it only made sense for him to be his dream world as well.

But Harry had a secret.

For as long as he had lived at Riddle manor, and it felt like he had lived there for an awfully long time, it had been Harry’s favourite thing to wonder around the sprawling and abandoned gardens. There was a particular sun spot, in the middle of an overgrown maze where he loved nothing more than to lay in the grass and gaze at the sky. When he did this he nearly always falls asleep. When he sleeps there Harry has vivid dreams and Tom is never in them.

Mostly they are blurred and fleeting. He can feel them, smell them, even touch them as if they were real. He hears the tingling laughter of a busy hall, the screaming laughter and cheers of children. He smells noxious fumes, rich warm food, and fresh summer grass. They feel like memories, like experiences he has had in this life or perhaps another. He experiences these dreams as if he is there, but his eyes are closed. He cannot see these dreams, cannot see the laughing smiling children or the grass under his feet and they slip and flit through his mind like the grains of sand in an hourglass. When he wakes these dreams are the ones he forgets most quickly.

Sometimes these dreams turn into nightmares. He can see more clearly now but wishes that he couldn’t. In these dreams he always feels small. The children’s laughs have turned into jeers, and their screams have become great vicious bellows. He is degraded and abused, he skulks in fear and runs down long dark corridors that are familiar and yet strange to him. He doesn’t know what he is running from. In some there is a great brute of a man. He towers over Harry and calls him names, pushes his face into the floor and rains heavy hits down upon him. Harry is scared of this man but he is not the worst monster that he dreams about. There is another with sparkling onyx eyes and a poisonous closeness about him, as if he has scented himself with bitterness. This man loathes Harry. It is never spoken of but the man’s eyes tell him the story. When he is there Harry always feels somehow humiliated. He dislikes this man, is more afraid of him than the big brute, but still this man is not the worst. The worst man of all is old, so old that Harry feels guilty for despising him so. He has clear blue eyes that sparkle and twinkle. Harry feels like he should like this man. He never abuses Harry, never beats him, never jeers but when he dreams of this man he feels a huge weight. The old man’s words are always sombre, always loaded with expectation though he can never make out what the man is saying. This man pretends to be Harry’s friend but in the backs of his eyes he can see guilt and despair. Harry wonders what the man has to feel so guilty about and decides he must have done terrible things to have such mysterious eyes. These dreams are clearest of all and they are not welcome. When Harry has these dreams he tries to forget them.

The third type of dream is the strangest of all. They remind Harry of the old broken mosaic that decorates the entrance hall of Riddle Manor. These dreams exist only in bits and pieces though they feel like they were once a whole story. What he can see of them is beautiful. He can see a pretty girl with curly dark hair and kind eyes. In the dream she is laughing so much he can see the backs of her teeth glinting in the sun. It is warm and he feels safe. Sometimes there is a boy with them. His hair is bright red, Harry is fascinated by it its shiny glossiness. The boys blue eyes are amused and inviting. Harry feels real love for them both. Of all the dreams and all the people in the dreams Harry hates this the most. These children make him feel at home, which he knows is wrong because Riddle Manor is his home. They make him feel safe, which is wrong because Tom is all Harry needs to feel safe. Mostly they make him yearn, for what he does not know, which is all wrong because what else could he possibly want when he has Tom? These dreams frighten him because they do not feel like dreams they feel like memories. They feel like good memories and from what Tom has told Harry he shouldn’t have any of those. Harry hates the girl and the boy in them even as he feels love for them. He hates the love too. Yet still he makes his way back to the sunspot and dreams, searching for something that he’ll never find because he doesn’t know what it is. Harry hates these dreams most of all

The only other time Harry has the same feeling is when he watches the birds. They are beautiful soaring over his head free and limitless in the sky. Harry imagines what it would be like to fly, but sometimes imagining feels more like remembering.

On the days when Harry goes into the garden he returns feeling guilty. He lies in Tom’s arms feeling like he should confess. The heavy remorse is overwhelming and sometimes Harry goes to tell Tom about the dreams and beg for his forgiveness but then Tom always does something, looks into his eyes, caresses his hand or nuzzles his hair. Harry forgets what it is he is feeling guilty about and gives himself to his love, his Lord, his world. The dreams are forgotten. They lie in wait for Harry, till his next journey into the garden.

THE END