The Tree of Blacks (English version)

Dreams, Maps, Treasures

23 February 1977. Hogwarts, Forbidden Forest.

Crouched at the foot of the majestic cypress where she and James had rendezvoused for that evening, Alya was waiting for the unfailingly late Gryffindor boy.

To beguile the wait, the girl decided to read the little book with a cerulean cover inlaid with words in the ancient language, which had been lent to her by Professor Ghalil.

As the old professor of Divination had assured her, despite the Latin title, the text appeared completely comprehensible and Alya was immediately sucked into an absorbed reading.

Among the porous pages of the ancient manuscript, illuminated by the small bubble of light emanating from her wand, Alya found many useful notions about the mysterious dream seers, the Somnia Videns, whom Ghalil had told her about months ago in his cramped office.

The girl's grey eyes were frantically devouring an important passage that explained, in archaic and complex language, how the complicated process behind the dream power of these unknown seers worked.

"An In Somniis Omnia Videns - or more vulgarly called Somnia Videns - is a 'sleeping' seer attracted by thoughts and emotions of strong impact and energy, which still wander in the reality around him. The sleeper, during sleep or in a state of semi-consciousness, is actually able to travel via his astral body to those who have given rise to such thoughts, which are then transformed into sources of energy.

The aforementioned astral body is the third of the subtle envelopes of which human beings are composed. It is the vehicle of the soul and knowledge, as well as the seat and engine of a person's feelings, desires and emotional state. The Somnia Videns possesses by nature and by birth a more developed and sensitive astral body than other individuals and is, therefore, especially susceptible to the influence of thought-currents that brush against it, and when the mind is not actively guarding it, it continually receives these stimuli from all sides and responds to them eagerly.

The Somnia Videns, through his dream-vision, can in some cases simply witness the unfolding of various events that are foreign to him. In others, however, he may not only visit places distant both in space and time, and sometimes of astonishing beauty and custodians of memories, but he may also find himself and exchange ideas with others of his kind, persons of the same power, both living and dead, who are equally awake on the astral plane in which the sleeper finds himself. He may be fortunate enough to meet those who know far more than he does, and be able to receive from them warnings or instructions; he may, on the other hand, have the privilege of helping and comforting some who are more in need than he is.

In general, he may come into contact with non-human entities of various species, with nature spirits, artificial elementals.

He will be subject to all sorts of influences, good or bad, fortifying or devastating..."

A sudden crunch made Alya's concentrated face emerge from the pages of the book.

James had finally arrived.

The girl closed the cerulean little book and slipped it inside her own school bag, along with other books she was in the habit of carrying with her at all times: a couple of Advanced Charms manuals (on the off-chance that she would need them to consult in case of need), a reading for her personal taste, so as to kill time in moments of boredom (in this case, it had been the turn of the manuscript lent to her by Ghalil) and finally the old copy of a non-magic children's tale, The Treasure Island, which Alya was very fond of, as it was linked to an important episode of her childhood.

Alya had kept that Muggle-born book since before she entered Hogwarts and never parted with it, although it was now very rare for her to read it. Besides, she had memorised every passage in the various chapters of that volume of adventure: as a young girl, she had devoured it over and over again. However, Alya had never stopped carrying it around with her, hidden in her bag among her other school books, as if it had become a precious heirloom for her to jealously guard.