Before the Storm

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

He was warm. Floating in it. Surrounded by it. Warm, relaxed, and calm. He couldn't remember the last time he felt so at peace.

Come to think of it...he had never felt such a sense of well being before.

Harry rested in a place of soft dreams. He could think of no other way to describe them. They weren't quite right, almost not there. Fuzzy impressions of his friends, of the times they had spent together. Eating ice cream on hot days. Playing impromptu games of Quiddich. They were easy and ephemeral. Flowing one into the next, leaving him feeling happy and complete.

It went on and on, until a hand rested on his shoulder, pulling him from their muzzy hold.

"Harry." The voice was soft, deep. Familiar. Though it took him a moment to realize who.

"Tom?" Harry blinked up into bright umber eyes, golden from the hint of sunrise. "Wh-where..." They were in a forest, resting on a pile of pillows and blanket by a stream. The sun appeared to be just rising. How long had they been there? Why was it so warm, so quiet?

Tom smiled, taking Harry's elbow, he helped him sit up. "This is a dream, Harry. Don't you remember?"

Yes...now that Tom said it, he did. "I was having a bad dream," Tom nodded, "you showed up and changed it."

"It's time to wake up, now." Tom said instead of commenting on his swooping into Harry dream to turn it upside down. As though that were normal for him. He just smiled, leaned back and said "Wake up." With such command that Harry did, in fact, wake up.

He blinked up at the windowed ceiling. Fish scuttled over his head, not a soul moved around the room. Harry sat up, crawling to the end of his bed he pushed the curtain back just enough to see the clock across the room. It was early still, though if he were an early riser he might wake at such a time.

Was it real? Was Tom awake now too. He probably did rise at this hour...it was madness, but Harry could envision it so.

He let the curtain fall back into place and slumped back into the covers. Tom Riddle had come to his aid. Again. It was one thing to step in and help someone with a quick fix, like he had with the Room of Requirements. It was another to follow someone into a dream to alleviate their distress.

Harry had a connection with Voldemort. He may want to deny it, but after everything with the Department of Mysteries, the months of shared dreams, of Voldemort's emotions leaking into him, he couldn't. He had thought, though, that such a thing would not follow him to the past. He had been here a while now and nothing that Tom felt or did reached him. They hadn't shared dreams before. There wasn't an exchange of emotions....right?

Harry rolled over, burying his face into his pillow. He couldn't figure this out...he had no explanation for the connection before falling into the past, he certainly didn't have one now. But it was easier to focus on that than to remember that Tom had seen one of his nightmares...what had the dream even been about? He could only remember the beach, the sense of panic. It was still mortifying to have been caught in such a state from someone so...so Tom!

Someone rose from across the room, yawned loudly and headed for the bathroom. The rest of the room would begin to rouse too. He might as well get up now since he was already awake.

Tom's shoes were gone from the rack when Harry slipped on his own. He probably got up early so that he was the first one to leave. If there was one thing that could be said about Tom Riddle, as Harry was learning, it was that he took his role as Head Boy very seriously.

The crowd in the Great Hall continued to throw Harry. Every time he entered to see the milling masses, having to weave and push his way to his table, he was struck again by how vastly different this point in time was. He fell onto the bench next to Alphard with a relieved sigh. A quick glance down the table showed him Tom, in conversation with a girl in Ravenclaw colors. Harry hurriedly turned away.