He Walks in Dreams

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the other original characters and or places in the Potterverse, which was created by the wonderful JK Rowling. I believe that they are owned by Warner Brothers. However, the plot, new characters and or places are mine, mine, and mine! And are subject to copyright by ME!


Chapter 6- The Accident


Hermione ate her dinner that night with more relish than she’d have thought possible earlier in the term. For the first time since Dumbledore had been killed she did not find the smell and taste of food repulsive, quite the opposite actually her mouth watered and her stomach gurgled contentedly. She waited for the platters to be cleared away and for the desert course to appear. She dug into the platter of fruit and cut herself off a good-sized portion of vanilla cake frosted with butter-cream icing. Ginny sat across from her and was doing an excellent imitation of her friend.


Ginny was more than simply confidant that Hermione would find a way to contact the guys, and better than that, keep in contact with them while they insisted on taking their lives into their hands by hunting Horcruxes without the assistance of the other members of The Order of the Phoenix. Ginny tried not to roll her eyes as she heard Harry’s reason for this madness echo through her ears, “It’s just too dangerous for me to allow anyone else to be a part of this.” She fumed at Harry’s childishness, besides if he wanted a partner so badly he should have taken Hermione. Between the two of them there was not even any unfair way to skew the data to favor Ron. Ginny assumed that the only reason that Harry had finally chosen her brother over Hermione was because Ron insisted that she be “kept safe.” The thought that Hermione Granger, of all people, needed saving made Ginny laugh out loud.


Hermione looked up from her dessert and fixed the redhead with a quizzical stare. “It’s nothing important, I swear,” said Ginny with as much composure as she could. There was no point in bringing up a topic that could upset her just before she began brewing the potion, one tiny mistake could…Ginny shook her head. She did not want to think about what the possible outcome of even the smallest mistake could be in a potion that complex. Hermione made a wry face and went back to her dessert.


Hermione’s stomach was sufficiently full enough that the nagging insecurity that she always felt, but would never let on about was beginning to gnaw at her. All of the “what ifs” and “I should’ves” were battering at her bruised emotions before she’d even managed to start brewing the potion. She hoped that her nerves weren’t visible to anyone else as she pushed her plate of half-finished cake away from her. The last thing that she needed was for others to start doubting her abilities that could be the difference between her success and failure. She would not allow herself to be sabotaged; she couldn’t let Ginny or the boys down. She resigned herself to the fact that she was the only one who could brew the potion that would maintain constant contact with Ron and Harry, she sighed and pushed herself up from the table and stretched. Ginny was only a few scant steps behind her all the way to the Room of Requirement, where they’d agreed was the best place to prevent discovery of their illicit extra-curricular activities. They knew how well it could work if they were to ask for the proper safeguards, it had worked well enough for that bastard Malfoy last year.


‘Best not to think of him now,’ Hermione thought as she paused in front of the portrait hole that served as the entryway to the Room of Requirement and waited for Ginny to confirm that they were not being spied on. When Ginny returned she nodded at Hermione and the two of them took a moment to review the exact wording of their thought to gain entrance to the Room of Requirement. “We need a place where we cannot be found to brew a potion.” They repeated it aloud three times to ensure that it was the same. “Don’t forget to emphasize the word cannot. It is extremely important.” Ginny nodded at Hermione’s advice, muttering the correct phrase to herself under her breath.


The rain stopped just before the sun had set, but unfortunately for Severus Snape the weather had taken a bitterly cold turn that was uncommon so early in the autumn. He pulled his cloak more tightly around him and pulled the cowl back down over his face in a futile effort to disguise his identity from any would-be witnesses. The wind whipped it out of his hands and exposed his grim visage to the blessedly empty street, he cursed and pulled it back into its proper position as he continued to skulk in the alley behind the Hog’s Head waiting for the opportune moment to strike.


Percy Weasley was not adjusting very well to the news that the Ministry of Magic, like all political institutions, was not always as informed as it should be ideally. It had been more than three years since Lord Vol…He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, damn after so long he still couldn’t even think of the name without shuddering, had returned and the Ministry just ignored the information! Fudge had deemed it easier to allow the Dark Lord to gather his minions to him purely because it was easier to deny than except that Vol…Voldemort had returned. He was disgusted by the out and out smear campaign that the Ministry had waged against Harry Potter, a person whom he had once felt fortunate to have considered a friend and who was very nearly an honorary Weasley, and Dumbledore.


Dumbledore. There was an entirely different and painful issue with which it seemed Percy wrestled with on a nightly basis, it was partly due to his own inaction that the most brilliant of all wizards was murdered. He couldn’t help but wonder what contribution he could have made to the resistance, for though he’d no knowledge of the Order of the Phoenix he was certain that such a group existed.


Hot tears appeared in his eyes, he wiped at them angrily and stared into the bottom of his now-empty glass of Gilly-water and Goblin Whisky and pushed it toward the surly bartender for a refill. Being drunk was probably not the best way to deal with his circumstances, but he couldn’t bring himself to crawl back to his family after being so obtuse and rude to them. He certainly wouldn’t have considered forgiving himself if the situation had been reversed; it was hopeless. At the very least being inebriated gave him a pleasant warm feeling in his stomach that he’d not felt since he had cut himself off from his family; now his only comfort came at the bottom of a bottle.


When closing time came the beastly bartender came to the redhead to collect his tab. When Percy glanced up at the mess of sharp and pointed teeth that shown through the man’s lips when he smiled, reaching into his pocket he withdrew the proper amount and as an afterthought he asked, “Can I buy you a drink?” Was he so pissed that he’d almost forgotten to tip?


The bartender’s smile grew even more fierce as he agreed to the drink with a belly laugh that shook the Butterbeer bottles on the wall behind him; his good humor took most of the visible fear from the young wizard’s face. Percy handed over the money for his tab plus the money for the alcoholic tip and when the man returned it was with not one, but two glasses filled to the rim with an amber liquid that Percy’d never seen before. “It’s a special brew of absinthe and ground bicorn horn,” the bartender said proudly. Percy’s confusion must have been evident as he looked at the glass with a lopsided pout, because the man felt the need to add, “It’s on the house, drink up laddie.”


He was pleasantly surprised that the strange concoction did not burn on the way down. In a show of good faith and genuine interest the man asked Percy what had happened to him that could make him so sad. As a bartender he’d seen regular customers ride the ebb and flow of their emotional states, which while it padded his coin-purse depressed him, especially on one so young as the redhead that had been sitting in front of him for the past few weeks from four in the afternoon until closing.


Percy was amazed with how easily he’d warmed up to the strange man who’d seemed terrifying only a few scant moments before. The entire story of his troubles came pouring out of him with a fluidity that he’d not have thought possible. The man only listened never interrupting, for which Percy was grateful, for he felt that were he interrupted that he’d never be able to continue telling it. Once he managed to get the story out in the open it seemed almost silly to him that he could be so upset and destroyed by his own inability to apologize to his family and to young Harry for having been right. The bartender smiled, this time taking great care not to show his teeth and frighten the young man further; he was pleased to see that the young wizard’s demeanor had changed in a way that indicated that the problem he’d spoken of would be resolved shortly; as soon as the redhead was once again sober, if the bartender was a good judge of character, and he was.


Percy left the bar for the first time in several weeks feeling much better and resolving to begin speaking to his family again the following day. He decided to take the a short cut by Apperating from the alleyway behind the pub, this would be quite a feat and would require all of the concentration that his inebriated mind could muster. So deep in his thoughts was Percy that he did not hear the telltale steps of the intruder in his alley…


The brewing of the potion was going just as smoothly as Ginny expected it to; fortunately it was not a potion that needed to stew for weeks as the Polyjuice potion Hermione’d concocted in her second year had been. The only remaining ingredients were, as was also the case with Polyjuice Potion, a piece of the individuals that you wished to maintain contact with. Hermione took a vial with a few strands of Harry and Ron’s hairs in it and she carefully unscrewed it, just as she was about to add them Ginny stopped her by grabbing her forearm, “I had a thought…” she smiled sheepishly, “Mum would be happy if she could know that Percy was all right, even if he hates us, we still love him, you know?” Hermione was nearly undone by the pain in her friend’s voice and the tears in her eyes.


“That sounds like a wonderful idea Ginny,” Hermione said softly and in as comforting a voice as possible, it was a good idea and for years she’d come to think of Percy as her own brother and she was no less hurt by his departure than the Weasley’s. “Do you have something of his? A hair or something?”


“Well, it’s not a hair, but will a fingernail clipping do?” Ginny asked as she pulled a silk cloth containing a nail clipping from behind her back at Hermione’s nod they added the hairs and clipping simultaneously. “Now stir three times counterclockwise and put out the flame,” Ginny read from the book.


Hermione followed the instructions and crossed to the table where she picked up the glass that lay waiting for her, suddenly everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, but she did her best to ignore it and get on with the task at hand. She scooped up enough of the potion for three mouthfuls and thought about each of the guys as she swallowed, activating the bond between the two of them. The first swallow ran down her throat, ‘Ron, my love,’ she thought and felt his sleeping mind in the back of her consciousness, the second swallow, ‘Harry, my best mate,’ she thought and she felt him sleeping too and moved along to her final quarry and with the third swallow she thought, ‘Percy, my brother.’ The first two connected seamlessly, but when she connected with Percy she could feel that something was terribly wrong…


Percy was suddenly aware of a strangely familiar presence in the back of his mind at the same instant at he felt an odd tingling sensation followed by intense pain wrack his body, but he had no time to analyze either as he’d already begun to Apparate. He was already dead when he landed in a heap in the small sitting room of his flat…


Hermione screamed involuntarily as the pain of Percy’s death lanced through her body and contorted it throwing her to the ground and her overloaded mind took her consciousness in an effort to preserve her sanity. The living were not supposed to know what secrets that the afterlife held or what it felt like to die, especially not so painful a death…


Harry and Ron sat bolt upright in their beds in a small wizarding town on the outskirts of London and looked at each other and said in unison, “Hermione!” Neither of them knew that had caused her such pain and distress, just that it was unbearable. They each reached out to her instinctively, but neither of them were able to touch her unconscious mind…