The Letters of Summer
Dreams, Clouds and Darkness
By kokopelli
Chapter 5 - Dreams, clouds and darkness
Author’s note: This chapter is different in tone and style, intentionally so. It begins and ends with dreams. Freud was alleged to have said, regarding dream interpretation "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." Some of these dreams are just nonsense, and others are Harry’s unconscious mind trying to sort out issues. You, gentle reader, may sort out which is which. This chapter also includes some vulgar language (from Dudley Dursley) that is not made up; a bloke who in real life resembled Dudley in many ways spoke it; I overheard the conversation years ago and it took up residence in a minor wrinkle of my brain.
It was a silly dream. It was the end of August and he was leaving for a week with the Weasleys at the Burrrow. Harry was in his bedroom at Privet Drive, trying to fit everything into his trunk. Everything fit, except for the Passbox. When he picked up the Passbox, he opened one of the doors and was sprayed in the face with some liquid. His dream dissolved, but his face was still wet. Harry had gone to sleep with the window open to allow Hedwig a chance to hunt at night. Hedwig was now in her cage, the window was still open and a cold rain was blowing in, soaking Harry’s pillow and drenching the parchment he’d been writing when he’d fallen asleep. To add insult to injury, the parchment was now illegible, and he had matching ugly blots of ink near his right ear and on his right thump. He knew from past experience that this particular ink was impossible to wash off without magic. He grabbed a fresh sheet of parchment, writing a quick note to Mrs. Weasley.
Dear Mrs. Weasley,
Help! I fell asleep with my quill and my face is blotted with ink. Please send Magical Mess Remover before I get in too much trouble with the Muggles.
Harry
Harry knew that the chance of receiving a reply before breakfast were between slim and none. He guessed that the Passbox was in Ginny’s bedroom. Molly wouldn’t check it before breakfast, and Ginny was notorious for waking at the last possible moment. There had been a long running wager between certain Gryffindor boys whether or not Ginny had been wearing pyjamas under her school robes on certain mornings when she appeared at breakfast, very, very late. No, he’d made his mess and now he had to live with it.
It was a weekday morning, which meant that unless Aunt Petunia had left instructions to the contrary, Harry was to prepare breakfast. Harry didn’t mind the duty, and had gotten fairly good at preparing a small range of breakfast staples: porridge, eggs (poached, scrambled and fried), sausage, bacon, toast, and, on festive occasions, fried bread. Harry wanted to try his hand at waffles, having been introduced to them at Hogwarts, but the Dursleys didn’t own a waffle iron and he daren’t ask Aunt Petunia to buy anything. The odd thing about breakfast duty was that Aunt Petunia would not let him use the fancy non-stick pans that Uncle Vernon had bought her many years ago for Christmas ("those are my pans, boy, and I don’t want you messing them up"); instead he had an ancient copper clad steel pan for cooking cereal and two cast iron frying pans. Looking in the refrigerator, Harry decided on sausage, scrambled eggs and toast. As with most chores, Harry had established a rhythm for this job: preheat the skillet, crack the eggs, start the sausage, load the toaster, set the table, pour the juice, pull the sausages, start the eggs, fire the toaster, stir the eggs, pull the eggs, greet the surly Dursleys who by now were sitting at the table, load the plates with food and serve. There were little touches that had to be remembered; Uncle Vernon wanted his toast buttered while Aunt Petunia wanted hers plain; Dudley didn’t care, provided that there was jam on the table and the lid to the jam jar was unscrewed. Harry savored the notion that the Dursleys would starve once he left Hogwarts, two years hence, never to return to their care. He knew that they probably wouldn't starve, after all, Aunt Petunia kept the family fed during the year when he wasn't at Privet Drive, but it was a fun fantasy to entertain. The only thing wrong with his breakfast tasks this morning was that it was now 7:00 a.m., but there were no Dursleys at the table. Harry looked out the window; it was still raining. The sky was quite overcast and dark. Harry checked the clock — it was still 7:00 a.m.. He'd never called the Dursleys to breakfast before. He wondered whether they'd appreciate the wakeup call, or whether, like all other facets of his existence, if they'd regard it as an intrusion upon their ability to enjoy life.
Harry never resolved this dilemma, as Uncle Vernon padded down the stairs, followed by his noiseless wife, and with some delay, Dudley waddled down the stairs as well.
"Whuzzat on your face, Boy?" Vernon growled.
"Ink. Sir. " Harry said. Harry had made a conscious decision before he'd left Hogwarts that he would be excruciatingly polite, everything would be "Yes, Sir" or "No, Ma'am." He figured that it would make the Muggles feel better, it didn’t cost him anything, and it tended to make their interactions less painful. He'd almost forgotten the "Sir" this time, as he was still fuming at himself for allowing the inkblot to happen.
"Whuzzat?" Vernon bellowed.
"Ink, Sir." Harry replied.
"I heard you the first time, Boy, don't get fresh with me. Why do you have ink on your face, Boy?"
"I fell asleep writing a letter. My quill leaked," Harry said, as if everyone had similar mishaps.
"Whydja use a ruddy quill?" Vernon growled.
Harry started to answer "Wizards use quills" but thought the better of it. Instead, he said:
"I'm used to using a quill, it's all they allow at school."
"Oh, that ruddy freaking school." Vernon snapped.
"Wouldn't a ball point be more sensible?" Petunia asked.
"Dunno, M'am, I haven't used one in five years." Harry answered. Why didn't he use a ballpoint? It would certainly avoid the messes he couldn't clean without magic. He made a note to himself to look into that once he was in town again.
". . . until you've gotten that off yer face." Vernon concluded.
"I'm sorry, I didn't hear you just now, what did you say, Uncle Vernon?"
"I SAID, you're not to leave this house until that mess is off of your ruddy face!" Vernon bellowed, his face turning red.
"Yes, Sir," Harry replied peacefully.
Dudley smiled at Harry across the table before shoving jam covered toast into his face. It was not a friendly smile.
Harry's appetite, already dim on this rainy day, vanished. He forced himself to eat the eggs, pushed down half a slice of toast and drained his juice. He nodded at Aunt Petunia, picked up his dishes, rinsed them and placed them into the dishwasher. Looking in the general vicinity of his Aunt and Uncle, he addressed them both.
"I'd like to be excused. I'm going to try to de-ink myself. I'll come down later and clear the table."
Vernon grunted and drank his coffee. Aunt Petunia nodded her head and went back to sipping her tea. Dudley smiled again, his smile waxing from a sneer to a leer. Dudley cut this display of teeth short by shoving a second slab of jam smeared toast into his mouth. Harry took the stairs soundlessly.
When he entered his room, his mood improved, slightly. The Weasley knob on the Passbox was lit. Harry pumped his fist into the air and hissed out a "Yes!"
Inside the Passbox was a dinner plate. On the dinner plate was a small stoppered bottle, a folded piece of parchment, a potato, sliced into two pieces and a cloth napkin. Harry snatched the parchment off the plate, blessing Molly Weasley for her promptness. A closer look at the parchment caused him to revise his blessing.
Dear Harry,
I hope it was my letter that you were working on, as I'm quite disappointed that I haven't gotten "the big one" from you yet. I can't tell you how many times I've fallen asleep writing in my diary, so I've got good at removing those ink stains. The bottle contains Mrs. Skower's Magical Mess Remover. Pour some onto the cut potato and rub the potato on your skin — voila, no more ink stained skin! Do chuck the potato though, as the combination of mess remover and ink renders it somewhat toxic. Under no circumstances should you apply the mess remover directly to your skin unless you fancy scald marks that look like love bites.
As ever your mastermind,
Ginny
Harry's mind wandered has he ran the mess remover soaked potato across his face, trying to see in the mirror whether he'd got the stain off of his ear. Ginny got the note first, so his guess that the Passbox was stored in her room was probably correct. Ginny kept a diary — okay, that's a bit odd, but not totally unexpected, as Hermione kept one as well. Ginny was familiar with the appearance of love bites. Again, for a girl with six older brothers, this was not too unusual. Harry had heard of the phenomenon, but until last Christmas, just before the holiday, when he'd witnessed a blotch on Seamus’ neck he'd never had the chance to correlate folklore with reality. It didn't look pleasant in the slightest. Having scrubbed all the blotches he could see and feel with the potato, Harry turned to the napkin. It was moistened with something pleasant-smelling and a warming charm had been placed upon it. While Harry rubbed the napkin across his face and neck, luxuriating in this simple comfort, he heard the door click open. While taking the towel from his face, he said,
"Good morning, Big D. Did you get lost this morning? Your room is two doors down the hall."
Dudley was sitting on Harry's bed, this morning's parchment from Ginny in his hand, his lips moving as he read.
"So, is this from the twist that you were writing last night?" Dudley asked, his leering smile pasted on his doughy face.
"Right in one, Big D, Smeltings is improving your mind."
"Well she says right here that she's disappointed that you haven't given her the 'big one' yet. She'll be disappointed afterwards too, you're such a scrawny little nancy boy."
Harry said nothing in reply, shocked by Dudley's crudity.
"She got big boobs like that bushy haired girl?" Dudley leered.
"Not particularly," Harry answered coolly, not bothering to contradict Dudley's characterization of Hermione's build.
"Does she give good head?" asked Dudley again, a grimace like smile floating on his face.
"I haven't the faintest idea. Last I checked, she was dating a roommate of mine — be a bit of bad form for me to be hitting on her at the same time." Harry said, trying to exude a worldly confidence.
"Never stopped us at Smeltings." Dudley grunted.
"Yeah, well that's one of the many differences between Smeltings and Hogwarts, Duddykins. Women with wands can get right unpleasant if you don't treat them like ladies."
"So, if you're not shagging her, why are you writing her a letter?" Dudley asked, with a look of genuine puzzlement.
"I write letters to my friends, Dudley, because I want to stay connected with them over the summer while I live with the finest Muggles of Little Whinging. Care for a bite of potato, Dudley?"
"You can't fool me, freak. That potato's poison. The skanky little twist said so right in her note."
"So right you are, Dudley, I can't put one over on a Smeltings man," Harry said grimly, snatching the note from Dudley's hand. Harry folded the note in half, wrote "THANKS!" on the back and placed the plate back into the Passbox. After closing the door, Harry turned to Dudley.
"I'll bet you five pounds that it's not in the box anymore."
"Yer on — I know you can't do you-know-what in the summer." Dudleys face was seized by a fit of greed as he moved to open the Passbox. He pulled the door open and gaped at the now empty interior.
"Where did it go?" Dudley asked, a worried look passing on his face.
"Oh, that information might cost you another five pounds, cousin Duddykins, you see, it's MAGIC." Harry whispered the last words for emphasis.
"So, Duddykins, if you think that I can't do magic over the summer, think again. If you think that you can talk about my lady friends in vulgar terms, remember that one of the first assignments we had last year was learning how to shrink things." Harry said, his wand now out, poking the fly of Dudley's trousers for emphasis. "One last thing, dear cousin. Hiding porno magazines under your mattress is so clichéd. Better come up with a better place to stash them, because they tend to fall out when your Mum changes the sheets on your bed. Now's the time when you leave my room, dear cousin, and go find something else to do, because I have to go finish my chores."
Dudley whimpered as he stood up, one hand on his crotch, one on his bum. Harry felt slightly soiled, first by the content of his discussion with Dudley and second by his distaste for blackmail. Dudley knew full well that Harry was the one who would be changing the sheets until the end of the summer when he hoped that he could be visiting the Burrow before term started. Nonetheless, the threat was clear. Harry hoped that he didn’t have to take advantage of this threat, but it was also nice to have leverage without resorting to physical violence, a currency that Dudley understood only too well.
~+~
Harry slipped into the kitchen, finished his regular morning chores, including the perfunctory list of chores that his aunt had left on a list by his place at the table, and returned up to his room. Harry found a folded five pound note on his pillow. He chuckled and stuffed it into his pocket. As he did so, he heard a popping sound and saw the Weasley knob on the Passbox light up. Before he could open the door, the room was scented with the smell of warm biscuits. Inside the box were two smallish plates, one piled with dark brown hermits, the other with chocolate chip biscuits. The first thing Harry thought was how was he going to store so many biscuits? He thought of a plastic zipper bag he had in his hiding hole which contained the last of his Honeydukes' stash from Hogsmeade. He figured when the biscuits cooled off, he'd store them in the bag and hide them in the hiding hole.
Harry looked out the window, hoping for a break in the rain. No such luck. A chill passed over him as he sank to his bed, looking out on the rain-drenched yard. The rain came in cycles, first a gentle mist, followed by a vigorous downpour, followed by vicious gusts of wind that blew the rain sideways, which in turn calmed into gentle breezes and the mist started all over again. Harry was trapped; there'd be no riding today. Harry picked Combat Cures and Countercharms from his desk, but as he opened the book, he was hit by the futility of studying this book without being able to practice the wandwork. He thought briefly of nicking one of Dudley's pencils and practicing with a wand substitute, but that seemed pointless too. Learning theory without application was too much like Umbridge. Harry began to fume, rubbing the back of his hand as he looked out the gray, rain soaked window. His bitter, angry, resentful thoughts churned into morose 'what-ifs' and self-condemnations. Harry was back in the abyss. He never noticed the soft popping sound from the Passbox, likewise he never noticed that the biscuits had completely cooled. He held the now useless book in one hand, the other hand beating a gentle tattoo on the windowpane. Lunchtime came and went, Harry remained at the window. Finally, the sound of the garage door opener broke his reverie, by the sound of things, Dudley had gone on an outing with his Mum. Harry had never noticed that they had left. Harry idly picked up a hermit and began to pick it apart, squeezing the raisins as he popped them into his mouth. A distant portion of his brain noted that the biscuit was quite good, but for Harry's present mood, he might as well be eating one of Hagrid's infamous Stoat sandwiches for all he savored the taste.
~+~
The dreams came back that night. Harry knew a lot about dreams; he had them in abundance. First there were the innocuous dreams, like the one that cropped up during exam week when he was brewing a potion under Snape's supervision, and instead of a swirling tincture in his cauldron, his cauldron was filled with mashed potatoes, complete with a well of gravy at the center. Next came the far sight dreams where he'd see an event as it happened. Thus far all of those dreams were linked to Voldemort, but Harry knew that it was only a matter of time before he'd have a far sight dream that wasn't linked to Voldemort's point of view. He wasn't sure whether this was a good thing or not, but he knew, somehow, that it was coming. Next came what he called mere nightmares, filled with riots of colour, strange issues and symbols from his past and present. Last were what he called his album dreams, when he would go from page to page through all the encounters he'd had with Voldemort, from his first year when he'd been wrestling with a two-faced Professor Quirrell to the evening a week ago when Fawkes had borne a blast of green light that Voldemort had intended for Harry. The album dreams, for all their intensity, were mercifully brief — he normally woke from those dreams. Harry was such an old hand, however, at the mere nightmares that he rarely woke up. Instead, he'd find himself in the morning, twisted in sweat soaked sheets, often with his cheeks stinging from the salty, tear soaked pillowcase. Harry knew that Dudley could hear some of these dreams, and intended to ask Tonks to place a durable Silencing charm on his bedroom.
Tonight's dream started under the willow tree where he'd had the impromptu picnic with Moey. Moey wasn't there, and neither was his bicycle. Instead, under the tree was a stone path that led to the river. Harry had never taken this path before and part of his mind questioned whether the path really existed. The path led through a series of steps to a plain by the banks of the river. On the plain was a playground. Harry was drawn to the swings. Compared to the vandalized playground of Little Whinging, this playground was immaculately intact. While Harry sat in the swings, he saw the children's climbing toy transform into the arch he's seen in the death room, the room where Sirius had passed the veil.
The veil was fluttering in an unseen breeze. He could hear the middling distant murmur of voices. He saw a couple dressed in tennis togs walking to the playground, and then up to the arch. To Harry's surprise, the girl was Cho, dressed like the Muggle girl he'd watched playing tennis a few days ago. Her companion was Michael Corner. Before they got to the veil, Cho turned to kiss Michael, who disappeared. Cho walked up to Harry, placing her small hand on his cheek.
"I'm really sorry things didn't work out between us, Harry. I really do like you, you know." Cho said, standing on tiptoe. She gave Harry a full kiss that ended with her lightly nipping Harry's lower lip between her teeth. With that, she turned and passed through the arch, rippling the veil as she went.
Harry turned from the arch and saw a black robed figure flying an intricate brightly coloured geometric kite by the river. The breeze stopped and the kite came tumbling to earth. The black robed figure approached, winding up kite string as he came. With a start, Harry recognized Professor Snape.
"Potter, fancy meeting you on an otherwise perfect day." Harry's professor said.
The shame Harry had felt when he’d discovered his father in Snape’s Penseived memory flooded over him. "I'm sorry, Professor, about the Pensieve, I shouldn't have violated your memories. I'm ashamed of what my Dad did to you, I've had that happen to me. No one should be treated like that. I'm sorry. Please forgive me," Harry said to a Professor Snape who appeared to not be listening. Snape wound up his kite string, took the kite which was now faded and tattered and threw it through the arch.
"It's time to put away childish things, Potter." Snape said, turning his back to him. Although no words were said, Harry knew he was forgiven.
Harry heard a familiar bark and saw a great shaggy black dog running pell-mell through the plains. After looping around the arch, the great dog stopped, licked Harry's hand and passed under the rippling veil. Harry felt his stomach lurch, as if he were falling, but before he could think about the veil and what he’d just seen, again, he saw the veil became lighter, thinner, transforming into the Mirror of Erised. Harry saw what he had seen during his first year when the Mirror had captured him; he saw his immediate and extended family. The Mirror blinked and Harry saw new scenes, happy scenes from his recent life: Snitches being caught, scenes from the Great Hall with Harry being surrounded by friends. The picture in the Mirror blinked again, and Harry was standing in formal robes next to a bride that looked a lot like his Mum; it blinked again and Harry was swamped on a playground with a gaggle of black haired children. The Mirror faded to gray and then turned red. Harry was now staring, eye to eye with an unblinking Voldemort. Hanging above them on a gossamer thread was a short sword. All around them was a circle of fire. Beyond the ring of fire Harry saw his family, his new family that he'd just seen in the Mirror. Light, brighter than lightning flashed, destroying Harry's vision. When his vision returned, the ring of fire was gone and Harry was alone on a pebble-filled beach — at the water's edge was the stone arch, hung with the fluttering black veil. As Harry walked toward the arch, he heard the sound of songbirds; the beach faded, the arch faded, leaving only the fluttering veil.
Harry was in bed, twisted in the sheets. Early sunlight was dripping into the room and the first songbirds of the day were indeed singing. Harry stood, shaking off the sheets. As he put on his glasses, he moved to the window. The sky was free of clouds of any sort. With any luck, he'd fit in a ride before the lawn was dry enough to be mowed. Harry was glad to be rid of the dream, glad that it wasn't raining, glad that he was going to be leaving the Dursleys, if even for a weekend, by tomorrow morning. Maybe today would be a better day.
Copyright Ó 2003 J Cornell — all rights reserved.
Yet another author’s note: disclaimer from Prologue applies.